And in the End
by Mystic25
Summary: Sam and Dean undertake the Trials…End of Series Speculation. M RATING LANGUAGE, VIOLENCE, IMAGERY. ** MAJOR CHARACTERS DEATHFIC**
1. Prologue

"And in the End"

Summary: Sam and Dean undertake the Trials…End of Series Speculation. M RATING LANGUAGE, VIOLENCE, IMAGERY. ** MAJOR CHARACTER DEATHFIC**

Rating: M for adult language, imagery, and violence.

A/N: If you have decided to read this, despite the not so pleasant warnings, this will be a DeathFic, and this is your warning for it. I won't tell you where it happens. But, if you are sticking with this fic, please remember that.

Last A/N #: This was written before a lot of the ending of Season 8 happened, and it is AU because of it.

* * *

**xxxxXxxxx**

"_I think Sam and Dean should go out in a blaze of glory.."_

~Jensen Ackles

**xxxxXxxx**

* * *

**Prologue**

"_Holy fuck!" _ Dean took a minute to swear into the night. Not even a full minute, it was cut off 10 seconds from sixty by the total exhaustion choking its hold on his body. There was blood running heavily down his ear, blocking out his hearing like he was underwater. Half of the outer ear was gone and it made an almost waterfall like effect from the blood oozing out of the hole from the torn flesh. Dean screamed his brother's name.

Sam emerged from the tree line, running towards him. His brother was limping badly. Dean could hear it snap and crunch from where he stood 10 yards away; and he had no idea how the fuck Sam managed to keep going when he was basically grinding bone against bone.

"Dean!" Sam roared when he saw him. It was a growling, desperate sound. Something someone would make when they found something so vital and basic that had been torn from them, like their heart.

"Sammy!" Dean ran on aching and bruised muscle towards his brother. His ribs were broken all the way down the lower part of his chest and it felt like he was inhaling fire with each step. But, he had to reach Sam.

An angry hiss, followed by bone curdling laughter broke over the grassy hill incased in dark trees behind Sam. A woman, once a beautiful blonde, now with jagged shorn hair and skin tight leather sauntered out of the trees. Her eyes were solid black and she held a wavy 10 inch blade knife in her hand, dripping with blood.

"Leaving the party so soon boys?" she smiled wickedly, and with a cock of her head. She held up the blade, the blood dripping down it like red rain. "It was just starting to get good," the blood began to drip down the blade to the hilt and onto her hand. She placed the hand in her mouth and sucked the blood off her fingers like syrup. "You came to try and shut me away with all my family into our over crowded house, and now you're _bailing_ just because it got a little heavy with the maiming, and the paralysis?" She flashed a look over at Sam when she said this.

Sam was still standing on his shattered leg, but he could fee blood tricking down the knife wound high up on his thigh. He wasn't a doctor, but the area was quickly growing numb. Whatever the demon had hit with her knife while _wearing_ a doctor had hit one of his spinal nerves.

"I mean, come _on!" _She threw out "I didn't cut your balls off guys," she smiled slow and sickening to Sam, then Dean. "So stop acting like I did." She stepped over almost lazily to Sam.

He raised the sawed off level with her head. "You should've stayed home bitch!"

She laughed again. "And miss this show? Being able to _finally_ bring down Sam and Dean Winchester. "Not a chance in- well you know."

Sam swiped the black knife at her forehead, managing to open a huge gash in her forehead. She screamed, but it sounded more like annoyance than pain. Her borrowed body righted itself and she wiped the blood of her face. "That wasn't very nice Sam," she raised her hand in a twisting motion in the air and Sam started to gasp and clutch at his neck.

Sam's shattered leg couldn't take the weight any longer and he fell to his knees.

"Sammy!" Dean came closer, Ruby's knife out and lunged. But then the demon held out her other hand he was thrown back like he hit an invisible wall.

"I don't think so handsome," she said as Dean groaned from the jarring his body took when it hit the hard ground. "Remember Abaddon? She was my _bitch_. I got tricks she's never even _heard_ of." She laughed, low and sinister, and blood dripped from the corners of her mouth. She twisted her hand in the air like she was turning a door knob and Sam started coughing, bringing up mass amounts of thick blood, so dark red it was almost black.

Sam reached his hands to his throat, feeling the blood cutting off his air, choking him. Flecks of blackish red stained his hand, just like it had been doing for weeks, competing for the searing pain in his leg, making him wish, for one brief second that he couldn't feel anything anymore.

The human wearing demon laughed dryly and full of sarcasm: "Having fun yet Sammy?"

"Don't you call him that you fucking scank!" Dean shouted as loud as he could with the amount of breath that he had in him.

The demon's eyes turned marble cold. Dean had been glared at by almost every demonic thing in existence, from demons in the pit, Azazel, even Lucifer himself. But the solid black eyes staring at him were Antarctica awash in blood. She huffed like a horse or a night ghast: "'_Sammy, Sammy', the children shout"_ the demon's voice had dropped low, like a warped eerie twisted recording. She raised her hand and pulled it forward like she was yanking on an invisible chord.

The next sound Dean heard, he never wanted to hear again. Sam was screaming in total and complete agony , hitting the ground like a felled tree. "Sam!" he clawed his way back to his feet, but was flung hard into a tree, unable to move.

The demon stood there holding a human bone broken in half, coated in blood and spider webbed with veins: "_The demon ripped his femur out." _

Sam was writing on the ground, his lower leg a bloody torn mess, and the pain from breaking it before was nothing compared to the bone no longer being _in_ his body. His writhing turned to wailing when the demon started _sucking _ on the broken end of his bone, chewing on the marrow inside – because he could still _feel _it.

She stared at Sam, but didn't move towards him. Instead she sauntered over to Dean, and thrust the jagged end of Sam's femur against his throat like a knife: "What's the matter Deano?" she poked a razor sharp pointy end of bone against Dean's neck, that drew a line of blood across the skin. "Don't like boning your brother?"

Dean struggled against the invisible force that held him. He fought as hard as he could, needing to break her hold for the sole reason to get to Sam: "I'm going to gut you all over this forest you demonic piece of shit!" Dean said this in a voice that heaved for breath.

"Not if you're dead, cowboy," she stroked his face with red painted nails that had been filed into points, drawing blood down his cheek. "And this time, we're going to make it _stick._ No more Lazarus Rising for the Winchesters anymore, But that doesn't mean we're not going to draw it out-" She squeezed his cheeks like she was cooing to a baby.

"Torture after all is our base stock," she leaned really close to Dean's face, so close that Dean could see where the red lipstick she wore ended and the dried blood began. "And we have a super special for you Dean, we know what is _real_ torture for you Dean Winchester, and it isn't death," she smiled with her hideous lipstick, and her voice became that low unearthly pitch again: "It's watching your dear beloved _Sammy_ die slow and painful, right in front of your eyes."

She reached out an arm behind her and twisted her hand again like she was winding a music box. Sam screamed his guttural scream, curling more into himself.

"Pathetic," The demon's voice was full of sarcastic pity, wearing a sneer that would terrorize anyone who saw it. "The apocalypse, closing the Gates –such seemingly noble tasks, and they give them to _you." _ She turned her face back over to Dean who was heaving on all the curses and things he wanted to say to her that fought for competition so that nothing came out of his mouth.

"You were right Dean, it really should've been you to do this, instead you send this _child_ to do a condemned man's job-"

"You know," Dean said, looking her dead in her black eyes. "You think after all these years you bitches would stop underestimating my brother-"

The demon turned at that moment and stared with stolen wide eyes at Sam standing on a leg with half a bone gone, raising an Angel sword in his hand. He lunged with a precision born from years of experience.

The demon wailed something inhuman in a language that only those on the lowest circle of hell had ever heard before. She turned, at the same time releasing the hold that she had on Dean.

Throwing him in front of the blade.

Neither Dean nor Sam knew who screamed louder.


	2. Twilight

**xxxxxXxxxx**

**Chapter One "Twilight"**

"_A leader who doesn't hesitate before he sends his nation into battle is not fit to be a leader."__  
_Golda Meir

**xxxxxXxxxx**

**One Week Earlier**

__Kevin Tran remembered what it was like to be a 'normal teenager' – at least vaguely. In truth he had never been 'normal'. He was a musical prodigy, a math prodigy, a token Asian nerd. Though that last part he rebelled against, because it was fucking prejudice. He had as much of a shot to be a nerd with a capital N as a white faced Irish kid with red hair. He just had the key factor of a crazy Asian mother who would throw him to the wolves wearing nothing but a steak around his penis if he brought home anything less than excellence.

But, as fucked up as that sounded to some – the ones who usually believed that Chinese and Japanese were the 'same thing' and asked him to draw characters for their bicep tattoos that really said 'lemon chicken' – it was a normal existence for him.

Now, Kevin wasn't a normal anything, hadn't been for a year. Since discovering that being able to play 6 instruments and recite the entire numeric value of Pi apparently wasn't enough, he now added Prophet of the Lord to the list of crazy.

He'd seen his girlfriend gutted, been on the run from _demons,_ almost lost his mom over a dozen times, and had moved into an abandoned fishing schooner on a dirty seashore. Things that would have freaked him out two years ago, now just made him tired, and a little jittery from too much caffeine.

As he did every day, except the 3 he earmarked for sleeping (which he rarely did), he was sitting over a broken clay tablet filled with the writing that no one had seen in over 3000 years. A yellow legal pad was next to him filled with scribbles, and crossed out scribbles as he translated the dead language. Today, however, there was a huge circle around a sloppy translation, drawn a little overzealous from the ingestion of 6 Red Bulls and one triple Red Eye.

He stared at the Samsung phone beside the pad. It didn't ring. Instead his answer came from the boat's metal door opening. Kevin looked up from his writings on the rickety table they were spread out and saw two men enter.

Fucking giants.

What Kevin first thought the moment he saw Dean and Sam Winchester come into his bedroom back at his home. They were still fucking giants, 6 feet or above – but that fear factor had been transferred from them to the news they would bring when they arrived.

Except this time, because he had called them over.

Sam Winchester, ironically the 'little brother' towered over his 'big' brother by several inches, was the first to come over to Kevin.

"Kev-" Sam said.

And Kevin couldn't help but notice that Sam's voice sounded like shit.

"You got something for us?"

Sam didn't draw anything out like he normally did, or ask Kevin how he was. Something so commonplace since Kevin had been held up in this shithole that he felt its absence like an echo.

Behind Sam, his older brother Dean, the bad ass mofo, Kevin referred to in secret, waited, silent, expectant. He looked older than Kevin had seen before, and Kevin couldn't help but notice how he kept glancing at Sam.

"Yeah," Kevin rubbed at his eyes trying to make his vision less blurry. It didn't work. "It's about the Trials-" he said trials with a capital T and watched as both Sam and Dean's attention became even more acute on him.

"What about them?" Dean asked.

Dean Winchester never drew anything out, so Kevin had already expected him to say something like that, and had actually rehearsed this in his head before the guys had shown up, leaving a pause for Dean to make such a remark.

"I know what the rest of them are," Kevin said, watching the men look at him with bewilderment.

"All of them?" Sam said, a look passed from him to Dean. "Where?-I mean how many are left?"

"Two," Kevin said like a school teacher, except not like any school teacher who had ever taught him.

Kevin almost missed it, but he heard a heavy swallow from Sam. But Sam was a veteran at masking things, because he delved into his next remark: "What are they about?-"

"Sam don't-" Dean cut his brother off. There was another look, but this one was a primal protective look.

Sam turned to his brother "I need to know Dean. We've been going at this damn blind, you said so yourself!-"

Dean looked like he wanted to go back in time and kick his own ass for his words. But, he remained silent. He turned back to Kevin, silently resigning to let Sam have his way, for now.

"The translations are flowery-" Kevin said.

"_Flowery?"_ Dean repeated the word like a bad taste. "Is that some kind of Blueberry Shortcake talk?"

"It's Strawberry Shortcake," Sam corrected.

Which earned him a look from Dean: "Dude, we need talk about how the hell you _know_ something like that later-"

"I mean the further I get into the translating the Hell Tablet," Kevin interrupted. "It gets more vague, metaphorical."

"What kind of metaphors are we talking about here?" Dean asked.

"The twisted kind," Kevin stood up from his chair, having to hold onto the table for support.

"You alright man?" Sam had finally remembered his personality and stared at Kevin in concern.

"Rockin' fantastic," Kevin deadpanned in a voice almost worthy of Dean's. He picked up his legal pad. "The section all the trials are on were a _bitch_ to translate-"

"Right, they were all in Enochian," Dean said. "It's not like you can get on _Rosetta Stone _and find that crap."

"No, it's more than that," Kevin flipped backwards on the legal pad. "I got the basic grasp of the language a month ago. But the section that describes the trials had this, rotating cipher, that shifted with each one," He flipped forward to the first page again: "The first one describes killing a Beast of Hell, bathing in its blood, and reciting the binding spell to mark you as a Tribute." He saw the knowing look pass from Sam to Dean because they had already completed the first trial.

"Tribute?" Dean said the word like he'd eaten something rancid. "Dude you better not tell me the rest of this is some demonic sideways version of the Hunger Games"

"Dean," Sam said.

"No," Dean cut him off. "Sam, you're risking your _life_ for these damn things man. I'm not letting you go into the Cornucopia Bloodbath painting flowers on yourself."

"The blood indicates Sam as a worthy opponent to undertake the rest of the Trials," Kevin said. "It's like a brand. Any Demon who sees him will know what he's going to undertake-"

Dean slapped his leg and it resonated like a gunshot. "Well, this keeps getting fucking better by the second. And how's he supposed to make it past the defensive tackle and into the end zone with the Mark of Cain stamped on his forehead?"

Dean Winchester was one of those guys that Kevin pictured had beat on nerds like him in high school, he had that _jock-don't-give-a-shit_ persona. He was certainly big and scary enough. But, he wasn't an empty headed Neanderthal who hit with only fists. Dean was _wicked_ smart, the way he intermingled metaphors about football with biblical references, was testament to that fact.

"The Second Trial," Kevin tapped the circled writing on the pad with his pointer finger. "It masks the Tribute-"

"Can we _please_ use another word for that?" Dean asked. "I keep picturing Sam as a snow white blonde baker."

"I didn't write it," Kevin complained. "And how do you know so much about the Hunger Games?"

"He read it on my Kindle," Sam volunteered.

"_Dude,"_ Dean cut him off with a TMI voice.

Sam held up a hand a ghost of a smug smile on his face.

"I'm still going with _Tribute_ guys okay?" Kevin cut back into his own conversation. "I'm translating an ancient tablet to close demons up in Hell forever, I'd rather not piss them off with any name changes." Kevin took both Sam and Dean's silence as acceptance. "The Second Trial – it cloaks the Tribute from all but the upper Echelon of demons so they can sneak past the front lines and to the Gates."

"How does that make any sense?" Sam asked. "I mean, if I'm being cloaked against demons why not _all _demons?"

"Yeah, especially the big bads at the top of cooperate level." Dean added.

"The Second Trial," Kevin said in answer. "It's more metaphorical then the rest, but it basically describes the Tribute having to kill an upper ranking demon. The twisted part is that it needs to _see_ you do this. Because it's eyes will send off some of its, I don't know 'demon essence' that's needed for the last task."

"Last task?" Dean said. "So we went from Hunger Games to Harry Potter now?"

"Task, trial, whatever man," Kevin said, his voice agitated. He'd been up for almost 52 hours this time around and his sanity was as thin as a dragonfly's wings. "The point is Sam has to kill one of these guys in order to gain access into Hell."

There was a thundering boom of a silence. It traveled from Dean to Sam, to Dean, to Sam again.

"What do you mean access?-" Dean said.

"The Gates," Kevin said, his agitation still there. He slammed the legal pad back on his desk. "Everything else about these Trials is metaphoric except them– they're actual _gates_, made of some kind of obsidian metal. Like what Dante described in his writings. The tablet writings talk about men, Legionaries from Rome, Ancient Celtic warriors who tried to undertake the task, bargaining their soul to demons to get inside the gates, but they can't be closed entirely from that side. So they always failed and spent an eternity rotting in hell. There was a part of the tablet that was almost obscured and rubbed out, but I _found_ it-the mother key," Kevin rubbed the back of his shorn hair like a tick, shaking like he had palsey, weary down to his cellular level. "You need _two_ people to shut the gates, The Tribute on Hell's side to physically hold the gates shut, and someone else on _this_ side. But on this side the gates are_ invisible_ to humans. So it needs a spell to lock it. Both forces have to act at the same time, as once force, to seal them closed forever."

"What about the bastard inside the walls of burning Troy?" Dean said, his voice eerily quiet, but it was heavy like a bough ripe with fruit. "What happens to him? He just gets to rot in there forever?" He stepped over to Kevin in the deadly way of a Hunter moving in to corner a deer. "Because let me tell you, I will let a hell hound bleed all over you and toss your ass to the first old and demented demon I see before I seal my brother back in hell." Dean reached for Kevin's arm.

"Dean!" Sam grabbed his arm and pinned him against the wall with an arm to his throat. "stop, back off!"

Kevin had been flung sideways from Dean, and he grabbed the edge of the table to keep from face planting on the floor. "The tablet talks about a life link on this side!" he slowly starting righting himself, using the table for support. "If there's something binding the Tribute to the human world then it gets yanked back out before the gates are sealed for good. I'm an only child here guys, but that kind of link sounds like _brothers._"

"What kind of spell is needed?" Sam asked, releasing Dean's throat, watching Dean rub it, trying to be non chalet about it.

"You're not doing it Sam!" Dean yelled

"_Yes_ I am!" Sam yelled back.

"Like fucking hell you are," Dean yanked Sam's arms behind his back, pushing him out the door.

Kevin could hear Sam swearing the entire time until the metal door shut with a '_bang'_

**xxxXxx**

Dean shoved Sam forward onto the beach wood dock where Kevin's boat was tethered. Seagulls culled overhead in a gray blue sky, and the neighboring boats bumped against the moors.

"Dean, what the hell is wrong with you?_"_ Sam whirled as soon as Dean released him.

"We didn't sign up for this Sam!" Dean was right in front Sam.

"We signed up to close the Gates!-"

"We signed up to _close_ them man, not trap you in them forever!"

"You heard what Kevin said!" Sam yelled back. "It won't be forever, if we get the right mojo."

"You want to risk your entire _existence_ on some smudged stick figure drawings? Sam, no one has _ever_ been able to close these gates." Dean extended his arms out to either side of him in agitation. "All we have is a history of failures, and I maybe new at this whole hell gate closing thing, but that sucks dick!"

"None of those guys were brothers Dean," Sam said, watching Dean turn away from him in disgust. "That's why we're going to make it out of this man," Sam had taken a hold of one of Dean's shoulders. "You promised to come with me on this Dean – and you're not welching out on that deal."

Sam's eyes were green, Dean always hated when he used that fact against him. Every part of him felt the fight it put up against this. It was wrong on every base level he possessed. But he had made a promise.

"I'm going on record right now to say that this is the suckiest mofo deal of all time," he walked past Sam and back inside the boat.

Sam came in right after him, and saw Dean standing beside Kevin, who was standing up with piece of rag pressed to his bleeding nose.

"So this mojo," Dean said to Kevin. "Where do we get it?"

"From a witch," Kevin said. "An old one, the tablet calls them Original."

"We don't speak 'Vampire Diaries' man," Dean growled out, "Get to the point."

"A witch that's at least 800, 900 years old," Kevin said in answer.

"But, witchcraft has been around long before that," Sam said in confusion.

"Witches were originally servants of Nature," Kevin pointed out. "Like the druid sisterhood of Avalon. But during the Middle Ages the Christian Religion burned down and cultivated so much of the land that they couldn't tap that power anymore. So in the 1100's a coven went dark, summoned a demon and in exchange for their souls, the first group to ever do so. The demon honored the deal and they were granted their powers back. Except the witches lost their ability to transfer their powers even to offspring, so they kept having to make deals with Demons in order to exist. I'm guessing any of the witches from that original coven who made the first deal _are_ the Original."

"Wow that's ironic," Dean deadpanned."So we bag one of these Snow White Crones, and do what exactly? Ask her to cast a little 'demon off mojo'?"

"I'm a _Prophet_ I'm not a witch," Kevin said flat out. "Find one and ask it man. C'mon you guys have been doing this for what, 9 years? You gotta know at least a dozen witches."

"We _kill_ witches, Kev," Dean reminded. "We don't Tweet them."

"I think I know where we can find one," Sam interrupted.

Both Dean and Kevin looked at him hard.

Dean finally understood, and responded with a tick of his head to his brother: "You gotta be kidding me."


	3. The Darkness

**xxxxxXxxxx**

**Chapter Two- **_**"**_**The Darkness"**

"_The enemy of my enemy is my friend."_

**xxxxXxxx**

"Don will see you in a minute," The blonde secretary smiled at Dean flirtatiously and Dean responded in kind, watching her walk away with a definitive swing of her hips.

Once she was out of earshot Dean turned a withering look on Sam: "_Don Stark?_ Really?"

"You said it yourself Dean, we kill witches, not save their contact numbers." Sam said. He was leant up a non descript white wall outside of Don Stark's office on the 18th Floor of the Law Firm in Nevada. "And we don't know of any other 900 year old witches besides him and Patrick the card player. And Patrick kind of offed himself to be with his girl."

"What about Ruby?" Dean asked. "She was a witch."

"Aside from also being _dead_ and also a _demon_, Ruby was born during the Salem Witch Trials, which only made her around 300-yers-old," Sam returned.

"Wow, I'm sorry Sam," Dean held up his hands "I didn't mean to bag on your scanky dead demon bitch, ex," his voice was dry and humorless, but not angry. Ruby had come between them for far too long. He lowered his hands."But _Don Stark?_ This is who you come up with Man of Letters?_"_ Dean still said. "The guy _invented_ doushbaggery-"

The wooden façade door across from them opened and a tall man with dark curled brown hair in a pristine Armani black single breasted suit leaned out of it. "Gentlemen," Don Stark smiled at them with gleaming white teeth. "Come in."

Sam stood up first, then Dean. Both walked the short distance across the hallway and found themselves inside an office that was hard to believe existed, given the fake veneer outside of the foyer. The floor was made of solid maple, polished to a high gloss sheen, and the walls were painted a deep burgundy ending with cream colored crown molding at both the floor and ceiling. There was a floor to ceiling mahogany bookshelf against one wall with red leather bound copies of law books resting there.

The bookshelf sat behind an impressive cherry wood desk that took up almost the entire office space.

"Well, it's great to see you again Don," Dean said dryly. "How's the Misses?"

"Maggie's currently in China, overseeing a unearthed treasure hidden near the Great Wall. Actually, it's _her_ treasure. She buried it there during the confusion of a Mongul attack in the 1300's. Little minx was always misplacing her stuff."

"Wives huh?" Dean threw out.

Sam gave him a look.

"Have a seat," Don said politely, holding out a hand to two leather bound chairs in front of his massive desk.

Dean and Sam lowered themselves into the chairs. Dean still glancing around the room: "Well you seem to be doing great for yourself." He spotted an ornate black and gilt scabbard with the hilt of a broadsword peeking out of it (jewel encrusted). "You win that at the company sack race?"

Don looked over to his sword. "Just a little token from the Crusades." He said it like he bought it at Pottery Barn on his last lunch break. He unbuttoned his suit jacket and sat down in the brown leather high backed chair at his desk.

"I was a little intrigued when my assistant said you called." Don leant back in his chair. "I thought I thoroughly and completely saved your asses the last time we met, and as such would have nothing more to do with each other."

"You did," Dean said. "And normally, _yeah,_ we don't tend to save the contacts of a witch. But circumstances call for it."

"And what circumstances are those?" Don said resting his hands together to form a triangle underneath his chin.

"We need a spell," Sam said, not being elusive at all. They didn't have time for any fanfare or subtlety. "One that can apparently can only be done by an Original witch."

Don Stark was over 900-years-old. And he had seen and heard more than his fair share of horrific and mind blowing things during that time. And this gave him an almost indifferent attitude towards anything concerning humanity. In fact, he prided himself on his ability to poker face almost any incident.

But, when Sam finished talking, Don sat up straighter in his chair, his hands lowering from his face. "You want to close the Gates of Hell." The temperature of the office dropped about 10 degrees, and the knickknacks and curious on the shelves began to shake like an earthquake.

Don stood up. "You stupid._ little, MORTALS-"_ The sword mounted on the wall fell with a heavy, reverberating clang. He waved a hand and the blinds that hung in the windows all closed and the door dead bolted with an audible sound.

Don stepped from behind his desk and rounded on Sam and Dean, flinging a hand back that pushed them and the chairs they were sitting on against the wall.

"How'd you even know that's what we're talking about?" Dean asked with a bit of a grunt from being unable to move from the spell Don had on them.

Don waved his hand again and Dean's head reeled back like he'd been slapped. Don buttoned his suit jacket back up and stepped right next to Sam and Dean. "There are only two things that require a spell from an Original Witch. And I don't peg you two as the kind that are itching for immaculate conception, so I went for Option B."

"So you know the spell?" Sam said, his breath as hitched as Dean's from the spell locked grip Don had on him.

Don looked at them with a growl and released his hold on them. Both Sam and Dean fell forward with a gasp.

"Every three centuries or so some idiot asks me for the spell to seal the gates," Don said. "I give them it of course, because I'm a business man. But they all treat it like an organ donor card. No one ever reads the fine print at the bottom of the contract about where they wind up when it's all over."

"Spare us your deal breaker crap speech Don," Dean said, rubbing at his neck. "Sam and I both been to hell, we know what to expect," Dean stood up and stared down Don, like he could take him on in a fist fight. "So how about you just give us the spell we came for?"

Don stepped closer to Dean, but didn't raise his hands or cast any spells. "Which one of you is the Tribute?" He looked from Sam to Dean. "I can only give the spell to him."

There was silence, heavy and thick. Don watched Dean's jaw lock, and saw him bite back a breath he was trying to hold. He turned away and looked at Sam.

"It's you isn't it?" Don stepped away from Dean and over to Sam. Sam didn't say anything, but Don had been reading people for centuries. "I don't envy you Sam," he looked up at Sam "The things you're going to have to do-"

"I was inside Lucifer's Cage-," Sam retorted, low and angry to the warlock. "I think I can survive this."

Don looked at him like he was just realizing something for the first time. "The Christian Apocalypse? That was _you?"_ He had an expression on his face that, vocalized would have made him go: _huh?_ "Well in this case I'm glad to say that it worked out in your favor, for when you go back."

"What are you talking about?" Sam insisted. "Go back where?"

"Back to Lucifer's Cage, of course." Don replied.

**xxxxxXxxxxx**

Dean had heard a _lot_ of crazy ass shit in his life. But he had never heard something like this. He kept glancing at Don, like it was all some sort of bad witch humor. But, Don wasn't laughing, or even attempting to laugh.

Which dropped a rock the size of a continent in his stomach. "What the hell are you talking about?"

"The key to close the Gates," Don said this like he was placating a child. "You have to have a _key_ to lock up a gate boys," he glanced down at the floor. It's down there, with them."

"And how do you know this?" Dean demanded. He glanced at Sam, which revealed him not saying anything, just standing there with disbelief so great that a single expression couldn't cover it all.

"Because it's the truth," Don informed. "Baal, the demon who turned me and my coven. She told me things during my initiation-"

"What initiation?" Sam had finally found his voice. But his thoughts were buzzing around him like a pestilence of locusts.

"Becoming a witch by demonic power required a sacrifice of flesh and blood in order to complete the ritual," Don said. "Baal used weapons on the others, swords, daggers, cat of nine tails. But she liked me – it made my initiation _different."_

The subtext was clearly spoken and it made both Sam and Dean's eyes widen.

"Okay," Dean tried not to sound repulsed at the whole idea. "So you knocked boots with this bitch, and got her to spill her secrets during pillow talk. I'm still not seeing what this has to do with the Cage."

"Baal was one of the angels who fell from heaven when Lucifer was cast out, one of the first demons created by the Devil," Don said, remembering the story told from the lips of the round bodied peasant girl that had been possessed by the demon. He could still smell the half rotting straw in her hair from the field she had taken him too. "Lucifer was cast out first, it took a few more days to round up the rest of the angels who sided with him. During that time Baal told me she snuck into the armory of Heaven and stole the key the angels had forged to lock up Lucifer and his kind once they were all cast out. After they all were down there, she hid the key in the deepest part of hell, where no one would be able to find it, and live to use it."

"The Key-," Sam was finally understanding the story, but he didn't want to. "It's inside Lucifer's Cage-" he had to take a moment to swallow. "But- I mean, how are we supposed to get it? The Cage is locked-"

Don turned to him. "You don't remember the Cage Sam? Word is you were down there for a long time."

Dean's turned to Don, his face flaring in ager. "Shut up."

"Baal told me it's a _cell_, an actual _Cage,_" Don said. "Made up of iron bars. You don't have to unlock it to get something out. All you have to do is reach in-between the slats, and grab it."

"I don't remember any bars," Sam insisted.

"Because you were most likely too busy being flayed alive Sam," Don returned. "You probably don't remember anything except the pain part."

"I thought I told you to _shut up."_ Dean growled, pushing in front of Sam.

"If I give Sam the spell and he makes it inside Hell, it's _useless_ if he doesn't get the key-"

"He says he doesn't remember any bars," Dean snapped back, bristling. "And my brother's no liar!"

"But he does have a human's capacity for pain, which means he blocked out certain things about the Cage to protect his mind from total corruption. He needs to remember where the key is inside the Cage, so he can use it as a schematic and get it before Lucifer or his demons realizes it's gone."

Dean shoved Don "Sam's not remembering _anything_,you understand me?"

"Getting that key is the Second Trial," Don said this like he was addressing his fellow partners at their morning business meeting. "If Sam doesn't remember where it is and makes it away from the Cage before demons tear him apart, then he can't move on in the game. No Third Trial, Hells Gates stay open."

Don looked from Dean to Sam, and when neither one of them said anything he looked at them in annoyance: "I have a hearing in five minutes," he set a leather brief case on his desk, and checked some papers inside before closing it with a snap of the metal clasps."I suggest you both think this over. Because my offer for this spell is only good for 24 hours." He picked up the case and walked out from his desk.

"There's something I want to know first," Sam said, and took a step forward toward s Don. "We've got an inside source who cracked the Trials, and nowhere in the writings does it say anything about going back to the Cage to retrieve anything – so how do we know you're _really _telling the truth?_"_

Don walked over to Sam again, the briefcase in his hand swinging with his movement. "You don't." he drew out the _'t'_ on the word '_don't'_. "You only have the words of a 920-year-old witch, forced to be the _bitch_ to a demon-"

"Wow, couple more rhymes like that and you got yourself a snazzy limerick," Dean cut in.

"Baal was still in Heaven after Lucifer's fall – it was pandemonium" Don cut back in. "She told me that when the scribe Metatron was inscribing the Tablets she overheard about the creation of the Trials. The part about the key-" Don turned from Sam to Dean with a swing of his head. "The Angels original intent was to have the Tribute prove himself worthy of heaven to enter and receive it. But Baal decided to raise the gauntlet. It's mention is only as a flowery metaphor to cover up the angels embarrassment of having the keys to hell stolen right out from under their halos."

"So you need me to remember where this _key_ is," Sam said in a statement so direct it almost sounded stupid to his ears.

"No, " Dean said, looking at his brother. "He needs someone _else_ to remember where the key is, because _you're not_ doing this."

"There hasn't been a soul in human history who has firsthand account of Satan's Cage," Don said "There _is_ no one else." Don raised his wrist and looked down at silver toned Bulvioa Watch. "The clock is ticking gentlemen."

Dean felt his breath up in his ears, and glanced at Sam, feeling the weight of the silence swallow them both.


	4. Before

**xxxxxXxxxx**

**Chapter Three: "Before"**

"_Nothing fixes a thing so intensely in the memory as the wish to forget it.__"_

~Michel de Montaigne

**xxxxxXxxxxx**

Lebanon, Kansas

The lack of windows never seemed to bother Dean. He seemed completely content in the concrete bunker where only artificial light was allowed in. Granted it was pretty frickin fancy as far as bunkers go, with two stories, a fully stocked library, gun range,chef's kitchen, marble laid bathrooms, and four bedrooms, not including the ones Sam and Dean had claimed as their own. It was in reality, an estate half buried in the ground.

Sam spent most of his days at the long walnut tables in what Dean had taken to calling the 'Great Room', pouring over the books their grandfather Henry and countless others had left them. Some of the books were so old that their pages were half crumbled to dust and smelled like a colony of mold. So much in fact that sometimes, Sam allowed himself a break from the smell, usually to wander into the kitchen to see what Dean had cooked.

This particular fact always floored Sam. Growing up Sam had never seen Dean cook anything more complex than Armor hotdogs and Macaroni, and three layer peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. Sam suspected that Dean's year with Lisa had left a mark of domestication in him that he repressed out of some loyalty to Hunter Masculinity. But then, he'd eaten that hamburger (made from Kobe beef no less), which was followed by a Chef's salad and steaks so perfect between medium and rare that Sam had to restrain himself from muttering an exorcism under his breath, because _this_ couldn't be his brother.

Sam bypassed the kitchen today, but a wafting of spices and beans that smelled deliciously like a three alarm chili followed him down the hallway. The bedrooms were all located in one section of the bunker.

Sam's room was across the hallway from Dean's, in a direct parallel. It was funny after how long Sam fought for independence and self identity from his brother, when finally given the chance to have something wholly his, he chose to place it 15 feet away from Dean.

Sam walked through the partially opened door. The room was almost identical to Dean's, a dresser, desk, a hi fi record player combination, and a queen memory foam mattress with a generic manilla comforter.

His dresser held no records, only a stack of books he brought in from the library. The walls were free of weapons. His favorite Taurus was tucked under a pile of socks and the extra clips were in a box next to it. But in the absence of weapons, there were a few battered pictures that were taped up there. Him as a baby with Dean and their mom outside their old house. One of him and Jess the day they moved in together, her thick blonde hair tucked up in a bandana, her smile radiant. And the last one – centrally located around the ward he painted into the wall – It wasn't of Amelia, the woman he lived with for over a year – It was him and Dean, three years ago at the Ozzy show they drove 200 miles to see. It was blurry, taken by a drunk that Dean stole his camera from afterwards.

Sam looked at this picture, he remembered the blaring sounds on stage, the smell of piss and sweat from the close proximity of the other people. But what he remembered most was Dean laughing, a real laugh, because they were doing something just for them.

There was a tapping on the door that made Sam turn.

"Here, " Dean entered the room wearing an apron with the phrase: _'I hunt the meat you eat'_ embroidered on it. In his hand was bowl, its contents steaming, a spoon plunged deep into it. "You need to eat something before the show starts."

Sam had been right about it being chili, dotted with red _and_ white onions. If the circumstances were different he would've made a comment to it about Dean. But instead, he just took the bowl. "Thanks." He moved the spoon around in the beans.

"How you doing?" Dean asked watching Sam do everything but _eat_ the chili.

"Honest answer?" Sam responded. "I wish I didn't have to do this, but if it helps us complete these Trials-"

"You know you can call it off, Sam." Dean said. "We can find another way, I promise you I won't think less of you for it man, and I won't let anyone think it either-"

"Dean, there is no other way," Sam finally looked up from his chili and at his brother. "If there were, we would've known it by now."

Sam was a grown man, but there was always a part of him where Dean could see the little boy, the _little brother_ underneath all the grown up parts. "Okay- I'm still backing your play, Sammy."

Sam's look shifted, that little brother part of him coming forward: "Thanks man."

"Alright, enough Oprah moments," Dean argued "Eat, I didn't slave over a dead guy's hot stove for nothing."

Sam dry laughed and shoveled a bite of the hot chili into his mouth, blowing on it first.

Dean watched him chew it, with an expectant smile. "Huh?"

Sam made the same face he had when he tasted the burger. "Okay, now you're starting to scare me." He took another spoonful and started to chew, but then he had to clear his throat. The clearing turned to coughing.

"Sam?"

Sam could hear Dean's question, but his throat felt tight and _water logged_, and his coughing became a large hack into his right fist. The bowl of chili dropped from his hand and fell onto the floor.

"Sam!" Dean grabbed Sam's shoulders and pulled him back up. He felt Sam's shoulders moving heavily under his hand from his harsh breathing.

There was a speck of red, barely the size of a pinprick, in the corner of Sam's mouth, but it was bright, and wet. Dean grabbed one of Sam's wrists and flipped his hand over.

And the same bright redness that was on his face was streaked across his palm.

"Sam?" Dean's voice was a quiet devastation.

There had been a buzzer installed by one of the Men of Letters. And it was buzzing with a sound that came through the place like a drone of bees.

"It's okay," Sam's voice went only an level higher than his brother's. "I'm good," he walked past Dean and into a private bathroom attached to his room, wiping off the blood on his palms with a hand towel.

He came back to the bedroom still doing this, and when he raised his eyes, Dean was watching him.

Dean didn't argue, he didn't counter anything. Because he had made a promise not to. But it still hurt. He picked up the bowl of chili from where it fell on the floor, and set it on the dresser. He then took the bloody cloth from Sam, and dropped it into the metal wastebasket .

And Sam didn't say anything, just followed Dean out when he left the bedroom, the bowl of chili abandoned in the dark.

The buzzer kept ringing the entire time Dean and Sam were making it to the front of the bunker. The place was huge, so it was a bit of a long walk, from the very back, where the bedrooms were located, to the very front.

Three wooden steps led up a stunted sloped hallway to the front door. When Dean reached the top of these stairs he pulled out his pearl handled Colt before continuing down them. The hall wasn't large enough for two people to walk down in abreast so Sam stayed at the top, partially hidden from sight, pulling out the knife hidden in his boot.

Dean slid out the huge bolted steel sliding lock mechanism. The door was also made of reinforced steel, which almost deadened any noise outside so asking '_who is it?'_ would be useless. Which was why Dean was aiming his gun as he undid the locks and slid the wide metal door open.

The front entrance of the bunker was down a good three feet from the road, let down from it by a set of concrete steps to a concrete landing.

There was a woman standing there, petite, but with a mass of thick, dark hair curled around her face like a halo.

"Times have certainly changed Dean Winchester," were the first words Missouri Mosley said as she stood there with a voice that made up for her lack of height. "Especially for the company you keep."

Dean turned back around to stare at Sam in confusion at Missouri's statement, but his eyes instantly widened, and so did Sam's. Because Don Stark now stood beside Sam, a black wool coat covering his Armani suit.

"Boy, I didn't just drive all the way from Lawrence to stand outside your front door," Missouri said in her infamous irritated, take charge voice.

Dean moved aside and Missouri walked up the steps and inside the bunker.

"How'd you get in here?" Dean's question was directed at Don.

"A spell," Don said simply. "I figured not just walking through the front door of your-" he looked around the library, and at the second level of the bunker –"_home_ wouldn't be the best of ideas considering the objectives."

"But we have Devils Traps painted at the door," Sam said while Dean looked affronted at Don's italicized declaration of the word _home._

"I'm not a demon, Sam," Don told him "I only consort with them."

"So I guess you think that makes you a Boy Scout," Missouri said untied the sash from her dark brown trench coat and Sam took it from her, and laid in on one of the library tables.

Don turned to woman. "I'm sorry, I don't think I've had the pleasure Ms.-"

"I know who you are Don Stark," Missouri said, her voice still in its full glory. "I've dealt with enough witches to know about your kind. And I know you know who I am. So I think it would be beneficial for all of us to just skip this dance."

"Forgive me, madam," Don stated. "But I know a lot of powerful mediums all over the world, forgive me again, with more advanced powers than yours-"

"Listen, you may have the Oldest Badass Witch of Time thing locked up Don," Dean stepped over to the warlock. "But this game belongs to me and Sam, which means _we_ get to chose the players."

"Forgive me for wanting to spare your brother a little agony-"

"I'm not _forgiving_ you for being a total doushbag-"

"Are you two done acting like jackasses?" Missouri interjected. "Or has the fate of our existence taken a backseat to your testosterone?"

Even Don shot Missouri a bit of a cowed look at her words. Missouri, for her part, wasn't paying attention. She walked past the Great Room and into the kitchen that was adjoined on the right.

Dean calling it a _real kitchen_ was a bit of an understatement. It was a chef's kitchen, complete with two stainless steel ovens, double deep welled sink, open range grill, and food pantry. The rest of the space not occupied with these things were covered in butcher block countertops and an assortment of culinary tools.

Dean's chili sat warming on a pot of the 6 ring gas burner stove, and the smell of onions hung in the air.

Missouri brought with her a little black bag, almost like a doctor's bag, and she set it in the center island. Hanging above was a pot rack. And intermingled with the copper pots in various sizes were bundles dried herbs.

Since no one had set foot inside the place for almost 50 years before Sam and Dean, most of the herbs were dark brown from over drying. There were a few fresher ones hanging with the brown. Missouri pulled down a sprig of green bundled with purple flowers.

She brought it to her nose and inhaled. "Fresh Rosemary-"

"I bought that at the Farmer's Market," Dean said, then cleared his throat at the look Sam was giving him.

"Rosemary is one of the most natural ingredients to improve memory," She set the bundle down on the counter. "But it's not the most potent." She opened the bag she brought with her, and pulled out a bag containing a long brown root with spindled branches outcroppings.

"What is that?" Sam asked.

"Arnecia," Missouri told him, taking the root out of the plastic bag. "It's used in memory teas. A Native American Shaman gave it to me."

"You mean like African Dream Root?" Dean asked in confusion . "How does that help? The Cage wasn't a dream for Sam."

"This isn't about Lucid Dreaming Dean," Missouri turns to him. At that moment her eyes seemed to be older than Don's. "This is designed to unlock _memories, _the ones you're going to need to complete this fool thing you're doing."

"I remember Hell Missouri," Sam's voice was both quiet and loud at the same time. "The heat, the smell, the pain-"

"But not all of it baby," Missouri stepped over to him, and looked at him sadly. She studied him like she had done 8-years-ago when he had come inside her house looking for his dad. "The memory has a way of blocking out things, even from itself. Things are minute, and inconsequential above the main event. No one remembers the colors the walls are when they're trapped in a burning house, they just remember the fire." She ghosted a hand over Sam's face."It won't be easy Sam."

Sam couldn't help the dry laugh that came to him as he stared at the woman he hadn't seen in 8 years. "I wouldn't trust it if it was."

**xxxxXxxx**

Dean had seen a whole lot of weird in his years as a Hunter. Oddball weird, freaky weird, and just plain shit yourself weird. But having a known psychic from Kansas parboiling a hog anus in a huge metal pot on his stove, while his brother and a 920-year-old witch looked on had officially formed its own category of weird.

"I thought this, _tea_ was made out of that Arnecia root," Dean said. He loved pork to a fault, but drinking rendered pig butt fat was disgusting no matter how he looked at it.

Missouri stirred at the boiling water with a long handled wooden spoon. "A recipe isn't just made from one ingredient Dean," She continued to stir the water which had turned a creamy white from the melted fat.

"You're right, boar ass alone isn't kosher enough. But, pair it with root that looks like a hairy deformed dick, now _that's_ gourmet cooking." He made a disgusted look.

Missouri took the spoon out of the water and smacked the gourd end on back of Dean's head before Dean could react.

Dean flinched, and groped at his head. "What the hell?-"

"Dean Winchester I warned you the first time what I would do to your sass mouth!" She glared at him and waved the spoon at him like a flag. She then turned to Sam who was standing by the butcher block island. "Sam, bring the Arnecia root, and drop it in."

"Yes ma'am," Sam picked up the root from where Missouri had set it on the island. He walked it over to the pot. "Dude, you just got spoon slapped." he side barred to Dean.

"Shut up," Dean retorted under his breath.

Sam grinned in victory and dropped the root into the roaring water. It wasn't like in the movies. The mixture didn't flair or spark, or turn colors. It simply continued to boil, and Missouri stirred it for another minute before placing a lid on the pot, and adjusting the heat. "It needs to simmer a while before it's ready."

"That's it?" Dean said to the lack of fanfare.

"Boy this isn't Ringling Brothers," Missouri said straight out. "Not everything has to be pyrotechnics for it to be powerful. "

"She's actually right," Don agreed with something Missouri said for the first time since he'd been there. He considered her methods a bit 'backwards', but there was a bit of a flair in her. "Maggie used a single herb to kill the king of Denmark."

"Wait-" Sam turned to Don. "You mean _Hamlet_- She-" he tried and failed to keep the bewilderment out of his voice. "That whole play-"

"We were broken up then, and she had a thing for the monarch." Don said like they were discussing something that happened last week instead of over 500 years ago. "But he cheated on her with a Lady in a neighboring providence. So she concocted an ear poison tincture out of a Mandrake root and gave it to the king's whoring brother," Trust me you do _not_ want to piss Maggie off." Don said this with a weird kind of fondness. "Shakespeare got copyrights to the story, changed the names and made into a play."

"Wow," Dean said, not knowing what else _to_ say to something like that. "You and the misses are really your own special brand of weird."

"No more weird then two backwoods boys from Lawrence Kansas brewing a shaman memory tea to shut the gates of hell," Don responded. "So how about we call this one a stalemate?"

"Okay you two, _enough_," Sam said to Don and Dean like he was reprimanding unruly students. "Like it or not, we have to work _together_ to even have a shot at this. So how about we stow away the crap until a later date? Alright?"

Don and Dean remained silent.

But Missouri didn't. "The tea should be ready."

Dean shot her a confused look. "It's only been 5 minutes."

"Boy I said _a while_, I didn't say anything about minutes." Missouri returned with a shake of her head like he was the world's dumbest idiot.

Ten minutes later Sam was seated on his bed. Missouri insisted that he needed to be someplace where he could stretch out. Dean stood beside him, Don took up residency in the corner.

Missouri passed Sam a white ceramic coffee mug. It steamed out a horrible smell that was a cross between bacon and week old rendered fat.

"Before Sam trips the light fantastic, show me the spell." Dean said to Don.

Don glared at him for a brief moment. But he was ultimately a businessman, and he respected a business transaction. He muttered a few words that sounded a cross between Romanian and Russian and a piece of aged parchment appeared in his hand. "I don't memorize my spells Dean, nor do I carry them around. Anyone could find them out that way." He folded the parchment into quarters and started to tuck it inside his jacket.

"Hold on Darin Stevens, " Dean held out his hand. "I need a visual."

"It's in _Sanskirt,"_ Don said. "You won't be able to read it anyway."

"I see it or you poof yourself back to Nevada," Dean responded.

When Don held up the parchment, Dean _couldn't_ read it. But he didn't let it stop him from giving it an once over. "Okay, that seems in order."

Sam made a noise of disbelief at his brother.

"Enjoy drinking your liquid hog anus Sammy," Dean retorted pointing to the steaming mug.

Sam looked down at the mug. The contents inside were _gray_ and smelled disgusting. He took a breath like he was about to run a marathon then took a large swallow of the liquid. He instantly fought not to gag.

"Tastes like ass huh?" Dean threw back.

Sam shot him the most withering of withering looks.

"Sam, you need to lay back," Missouri said. "I have to connect with your psyche before the tea takes hold."

Sam coughed again. "What do you mean?" He handed Missouri the mug and stretched out on the bed, with his shoes on.

"The memories can get very intense," Missouri informed. " It will be almost like you're there. You need to establish a hold with the world, or there's a chance you could forget what's real."

Both Dean and Sam shared a look. Sam had only been two years out from the crippling hallucinations of Lucifer that nearly undid him.

Dean gave Sam a silent _'you sure about this?'_

Sam answered with a silent nod, then dropped his head back on the pillow and closed his eyes.

Dean stood near Sam's head and looked down at his brother. "You want some scented candles or a massage or something?"

"Shut up," This time Sam said it behind closed eyes.

Missouri move in between Dean and Sam and sat in the middle of the bed. "Sam, I want you to listen to my voice, remember what it sounds like. Form it into a link in your mind, a connection between you and me – can you do that?"

"Yeah," Sam responded, taking a slow breath, trying to make it deep.

"I'm going to count down to three Sam, okay?" Missouri said. "And after I do, I want you to remember the Cage, Lucifer's Cage, you understand?"

"Yes," Sam answered again. but his voice sounded sluggish. The affects of the Arnecia were taking hold. But even with all the sluggishness, there was still an unmistakable sound of fear in his voice.

"Three," Missouri started to count, she raised her eyes to Dean and found his intent on hers. She flicked her eyes back down to Sam.

"Two."

Sam opened his eyes, and in the one brief instant before he closed them again, they flicked over to Dean, and he found his brother's watchful gaze on him.

"One-"


	5. Rising Star

**xxxxXxxxx**

**Chapter Four- "Rising Star"**

"_Well what is this that I can't see, with ice cold hands taking hold of me?"_

~Jen Titus "O'Death"

**xxxxXxxxx**

**[** _There is no heat hotter than hellfire. The hottest fire humanity knows: The internal infrastructure of a glass blowers kiln, the depths of an active volcano- they are sunburns compared to the heat of the sun that is hell._

_It is a never ending heat that cannot be doused with water, does not decrease in temperature in the slightest, and, never, ever can be put out._

_It's exists everywhere on a plane that extends all three human dimensions, and beyond, to the fifth and sixth-_

_Everywhere, except a singular spot, an Antarctica inside the volcano. Made of black, corroded iron:_

_He is pressed up against the bars, their jagged splinters tearing into his flesh, dripping blood that freezes instantly, because the Cage is not hot, it's _cold_, cold as solid ice._

_He cannot feel the bars through the chill, believes they are nothing more than frozen icicles. His clothes have long since fallen away, now he wears nothing but a coat of blood._

"_Sam-" the voice is the harshest whisper, rusted nails scraping across a piece of granite._

_Sam cannot clear his vision, there is congealed blood in his eyes, frozen at his lashes._

_Lucifer's face is Nick in front of him, in plaid and dirty jeans. He smiles Then it flashes like a ghoul, becomes something hideous, and black with ram shaped horns that scrape loose a red rain of frozen icicles._**]**

"Sam?"

**[**_The face morphs back, to human, but no human being has ever smiled so coldly. There is a work table made of splintered wood in front of it, and Nick picks up a sickle, with an appendage that would resemble a ram's hoof with hooked claws. "I thought I told you no sleeping." The sickle comes down, and then slices up._**]**

Sam jerks like he's having a seizure.

"Sam!" Missouri leant over the bed as Sam thrashes. She places a hand on his head, but he does not react to it. "Listen to my voice – tell me what you see?"

**[**_Dean did not have a body when he was thrown into Hell. But he always talked about the pain in purely agonizing physicality. There was a moment, a brief one, right before Sam jumped, where he wondered if it were different for someone in hell with a body._

_But he quickly discovered, that it didn't matter. That pain and agony, would _always_ be pain and agony._

_Lucifer continued to smile when he pulled back on the sickle, and a rush of crimson spilled out._**]**

"My organs," Sam said.

**[**_A long trail of gleaming white intestines laid like a dead snake next to a dark liver on the black frozen ground._**]**

"They're everywhere."

**[**_Sam lasted on his feet for one more moment before, he dropped to his knees, and toppled into his own viscera._**]**

Sam shuddered, choking, head thrown back and screamed worse than when his soul had been shoved back inside.

"Sam!" Dean pushed his way in between Missouri and Sam, but the woman laid a hand on his forearm before he could touch his brother.

"Sam, you hear me now, understand?" Missouri said as Dean glared at her in total hostility. "You are _not_ there Sam-"

**[**_Lucifer laughed as he cleaned the blood off of the sickle with a white rag the way a butcher would after he had gutted a hog. _

"_If humanity could see their Messiah now." Lucifer set the sickle down on the work table and picked up a knife that was more rust then metal. He walked over and knelt down in front of Sam, and tied the bloody rag in his mouth like a gag then hauled him to his feet by a hand on his throat. "I think they would be asking for their money back."_]

"I need you to look past your physical pain," Missouri demanded "and tell me- what you see."

**[**_"You're not savior Sam," Lucifer traced the knife up and down the skin of Sam's face until blood crisscrossed and froze like a grotesque tribal mask. "You just some pathetic son-of-a-bitch from Kansas who ran out of dumb luck." _

_Lucifer squeezed and drew breaths out of Sam like puffs of smoke from a cigarette._

_High above, next to an icicle made of blood so old it was as black as the Cage, there was something hanging upside down, gleaming gold in the brightness of the ice_**]**

"The Key" Sam's words were choking off like he was being strangled "It's there."

"Where?" Missouri pressed.

"Upside down," Sam's voice choked off.

**[**_Sam felt the cold creep up into the gaping hole of his chest. His liver and intestines were gone, but the ice began to form itself on his ribs and into his heart. He could feel the blood congealing in his veins._**]**

"Sam?" Missouri pulled back in alarm, as the color of Sam's lips turned from flesh to blue. His body began to jerk in violent shudders.

"Sam!" Dean grabbed his brother's arm and it was as cold as a winter frost.

"Sam!" Missouri shouted "You need to listen to my voice, come out of the Cage and back here-"

Dean cried out and dropped Sam's hand as it grew so cold that it physically burned him. "What the hell is happening?"

"I don't know!" Missouri said, and it was not a comforting thing for a psychic to admit when she didn't understand something with something this powerful. "It's some kind of psychic echo from the Cage, from the imprint Lucifer left on his soul-"

"Pull him out!" Dean shouted at her, when Sam's lips turned from blue to paper white, a color beyond frozen. His brother's body was jerking so much it was sliding the bed across the ground by degrees.

Don suddenly appeared right next to Sam, he was holding the parchment, and began to recite the words from it.

The light bulb overhead popped, and rained glass down on them, light became shadow.

Don continued to read, his voice growing louder with each line of the incantation. A flooding of light spider webbed its way up Sam's arms, his body gave one last shudder and then it stopped.

"_Sam!"_ Dean immediately felt for a pulse, finding one rapidly beating beneath his fingers when he placed them at his brother's neck. Cold still radiated through the skin. "He's still feels like a deep freeze."

Missouri placed a hand on Sam's forehead and could feel the cold even before her palm reached his skin. "Get him in the tub! We need to warm up his core temperature."

Don made a move of his arm, a gesture that would've no doubt had the end result of a teleportation spell. But before he could complete it there was a heavy _click click _ in his face.

"We do this the human way," Dean's Colt was inches away from Don's eyes.

Don was one of the first demonic spawned witches, he could wave Dean's gun off as laughably as a fly buzzing in front of him, Dean for that matter. But he did neither and lowered his hand.

Dean lowered his gun "Grab his feet."

Ten minutes later, hunter and ancient witch were slamming through the doorway of a master suite bathroom. It wasn't attached to any bedroom, it was more like an executive washroom. A mosaic of colorful tiles made up a walkway to a tub the size of a small Jacuzzi with multiple faucets. It was deep and had a set of steps that descended into it.

They lowered Sam in on his back, and his head slid limply back against the steps.

Missouri flipped on three of the faucets and hot water poured out of them, drenching Sam's clothes and skin.

Dean watched his brother's face, started rubbing his arm through the fabric of his shirt. "C'mon kid, c'mon-" He moved his hand lower and scrapped his knuckles over Sam's ribcage, rubbing hard. Nothing happened for a full minute.

Then Sam suddenly jerked, and gasped his eyes were wide, frantic.

"_Fuck- "_Dean let utter relief sink in, not giving a shit. He pulled off his jacket and threw it over his brother. The fabric was instantly saturated with the rising warm water.

Sam kept gasping, then pawed at the fabric until he found his brother's arm and then his eyes.

"_Dean-"_


	6. Dawn

**xxxxXxxxx**

**Chapter Five "Dawn"**

"_The brave my not live forever, but the cautious do not live at all."_

~Princess Diaries

**xxxxXxxxx**

'_8:59'_

The clock in front of Kevin kept reading the same thing, blatantly defying his blinking to get it to change.

His eyes felt like whole of the Sahara Desert was in them, he rubbed at them with the heels of his hands until he floating spots and swirls danced in front of him like he was on an acid trip. His head was pounding an alternative rock song beat against his skull.

He grabbed the plastic bottle from where it sat next to his elbow and swallowed three Technicolor green round pills, chasing them with one of the blue 'pep pills' (amphetamines, which had been banned 5 years ago by the FDA) Dean had given him an entire pharmacy stock of them three weeks ago, and he was down to almost half the bottle of green and half the bottle of the blue. The good news was that ignoring the 'recommended dosages' and mixing drugs blindly hadn't killed him yet. The bad news was that he was pretty sure he was becoming a drug addict.

A fog horn from the lighthouse 20 miles out groaned through the water, rattling his legal pad and the tablet, and also his brain.

"God," Kevin swore something harsher afterwards and clutched at his head. He could feel his brain trying to escape out his ears, and in act born by the pure shitty spaced out way he felt, he held his hands over his ears to keep it inside.

His hands came away from his face smelling like a garbage dump. He hadn't taken a shower in almost three days- not counting that time he stepped out of the boat at night to breathe something besides his own stale breath and fell in the water. So now he smelled like garbage _and_ rancid fish.

He had about five minutes before the pep pills kicked in and he started feeling like he was being tossed around a mosh pit with subwoofers under the floor, so he finally decided to fuck it for five minutes and go was the fish out of his hair.

But then the phone rang.

"_Fuck it," _Kevin flipped the phone open _"_Hey Dean"

"_Kev, everything kosher?"_ Dean's graveled voice came over the line, all serious as it always was. "_And did you just say 'fuck it?'_

"Yeah, no," Talking to Dean always made Kevin feel like he was talking to a cross between an rigid father and an older brother he was scared to piss off or he wouldn't think he was cool anymore. "Maybe, look it's just been a long time since I remember closing my eyes last-"

"_You and me both kid." _

Dean's line was a little cryptic and heavy even for Dean. It made Kevin pull a fist out of his eye. _"_What's going on?-"

"_We found our witch, and are on our way to cracking part two of our Nancy Drew Mystery."_

"That's good," Kevin said so simply he felt like kicking his own ass for sounding like a preschooler. "How come you sound like that's not good?"

"_Nothing about this is _good _Kev-_"

"Dean," Kevin cut Dean off. He'd only known Dean for a few months, and most of that time was spent running for his life from vengeful angels and/or demons, so that didn't leave much time for small talk between them. But he had started to pick up on a few things. One of them being was that Dean would skirt around subjects when something was wrong.

"Did something to happen? To you, or Sam?"

The pause on the other end of the line was too long.

**xxxxXxxxx**

"We're awesome Kev," Dean said.

The washroom was made of blue and green mosaic tile on the floor and halfway up the wall, making it feel like it was under the depths of the sea. There were several drains in the floor allowing it to double as one huge shower. Apparently the Men of Letters hadn't been big on privacy because there were several shower heads installed next to these drains but no shower _curtains._

Dean had actually gone out to a local K Mart and picked up one, a mermaid green to match the tiles, and a PVC shower rod. Sam gave him the craziest of looks and threw an entire bottle of Holy Water on him when he came back from that particular run.

Steam was billowing from behind this shower curtain, and it grew into a huge gray/white cloud when it was pulled back.

Sam walked out from behind the curtain, a gray towel secured around his waist.

"_This is some crazy shit Dean,"_ Kevin said on the other end . _"I doubt any of us are really fine anymore."_

Missouri had been sitting on the edge of the tub, but when Sam came out of she rose to meet him in the middle of the room, showing no reaction, indifferent or interested about a half naked man in front of her. She simply held out a pile of clean clothes she had retrieved from his room.

Once she released them to Sam with a "thanks" in return from him, she left like she were a handmaiden or a servant. But Sam watched her go like she was neither.

"Just keep on keeping on Kev,_ "_ Dean said watching Sam unfold the pair of jeans. "Let us know when you have something more."

"_Wait, this call was just to check up on me?"_ Kevin's voice sounded a bit shrill. _"You channeling my mom now?"_

"Bye Kid," Dean said, hanging up. He walked towards Sam just as Sam was about to drop his towel.

And Sam noticed. "Dude," he glared at Dean, raising the towel back up. "Turn around."

Dean's normal remark to something like this would've been something along the lines of '_anything for a lady'_ But, considering what had just happened he just did as Sam said, and faced the other direction where Sam's wet clothes sat in a pile at the base of the tub.

"Okay," Sam's voice said

Dean turned around in time to see his brother, jeans on, reaching for a gray shirt from off the ground.

"Sammy-" Dean watched Sam slide the shirt over his torso, not in a pervy way, just watching. "You doing okay?"

The way Dean asked the question, the way he said his name, it was something only Sam had ever heard, was the only one ever _allowed_ to hear it. It was way Dean talked when there was no one else around but them.

"Honest answer?" Sam leaned against the wall and laced up his brown boots. It was the same question he had an two hours ago. At least he _thinks_ it was two hours ago. After the memory tea, his mind was a little jumbled.

"Honest answer," Dean repeated.

Sam finished tying the last shoe and stood back up to his full height. "I'm glad you're coming with me."

Dean didn't say anything. He walked over to his brother and slapped him on the shoulder.

Sam walked out the door, Dean followed.

They came back into the Great Room. Don was seated at a dark chocolate brown leather sofa, one arm thrown out against the cushion like was lounging, his feet up on a dark walnut coffee table.

"So," Don said looking up to the Winchesters. "Are we ready to continue?"

"Witches," Missouri mumbled, coming around from where she had been standing at one of the tables "You never did have much stock in _manners_," She walked by Don with a glower, slapping his legs with her hand. "Boy I don't care how old or how powerful you are, get your damn feet off this table before I break your magic wand." She kept glowering at Don until the battle between 58-year-old medium and 920-year-old witch ended in the 920-year-old witch getting owned.

Don stood up, trying to look dignified, but Dean's smirk ended that. So Don decided to move on from being dignified and got down to business.

That Missouri beat him too by approaching Sam and Dean "Don and I have been talking," Missouri shot another one of her looks towards Don. "There's a spell that he says he can perform-"

"That I _can_ perform," Don insisted. "I'm older then you by 800 years sweetheart."

"You better hope I don't find someone to translate that Latin you just cursed at me."

"Alright Sonny and Cher enough," Dean cut in and was immediately whirled on by Missouri with a silent: '_excuse me?'_ "Sorry," Dean quickly apologized to Missouri. "You were saying?"

"I can do a spell," Don answered. "That keeps Sam from getting trapped behind hell when the gates are slammed shut."

"The tablet mentioned something about that," Sam said "It called it a Life Link."

"It's more than a link, Sam," Don went on. "It's a blood spell that binds the Tribute to something living on this side, as long as that something remains alive, you get yanked back."

"What kind of something?" Sam asked another question.

"Anything that breaths and has a heartbeat," Don replied. "Though I'd steer clear of anything like animals. You think you're being discreet, but you'd be surprised how easily a dog can get run over by a car."

"Sam's not linking himself to Fido alright?, " Dean cut in "He's linking himself to me."

Sam turned to Dean in surprise. "Dean-"

Don looked at Dean surprised too, but his was more of a curious surprise. "I don't think you realize what you're getting yourself involved in-"

"He's my brother," Dean cut in. "I've been involved with him since the jump. I'm not backing down now-"

"A Life Link bond isn't the same as one shared by family Dean," Don walked over to where Sam and Dean were standing beside Missouri. "Sam will make it out of hell intact if you're still alive on the other side." Don swept his gaze over from Dean to Sam "But this link works both ways, if one of you dies - the other does to."

Sam's eyes widened, and he turned to Dean, who despite the overload of information didn't look as shocked as he did. "He's-" Sam pointed at his brother. "You're not doing this Dean."

"I said I'd come with you Sam," Dean insisted. "My mind's already made up" Dean insisted.

"Then unmake it!" Sam shouted.

"Can we save the Jack and Rose lover's quarrel for a later date?" Don cut in.

Everyone knew about Dean Winchester's temper. It was the stuff of legends, in both the monster and human community. But there was always this underestimation of Sam. That he was the docile one, simply because he was younger.

But right then, Sam's vision red hot, and with it, the full bodied truth of just how strong his temper was. In less than a handful of seconds he drew the knife from his boot, and raised it advancing on Don at his full height of 6'4". "You fucking-"

Don twisted a hand in the air, and Sam's throat instantly closed up. The knife clattered to the ground as Sam gasped for air.

"Hey, hey, hey!" Dean jumped in between Don and his brother. "That's enough!" he yelled at Don, who released his hand and Sam gasped for air.

Dean had to push Sam back when, despite just being choked, Sam still tried to move. "I said that's _enough_!" he turned just as quickly and pointed at Don. "Don't think just because you're powerful you shouldn't be afraid if I let him back up."

Sam, who was panting, behind Dean shot a look so cold at Don that it was like its own weapon. He jerked out Dean's grip, and Dean backed off with hands in the air.

"I'm not letting you do this," Sam muttered to Dean, under his breath. "But like you said – your mind's made up." his voice was dry almost angry.

Dean let silence be his answer, he could deal with Sam being angry at him. But he would never entrust Sam's life to anyone else but his. "So what does this spell involve? Cause I gotta say the last one _awesome."_

Don waved a hand and an knife appeared in his hand under a cloud of smoke.

"Seriously," Dean said "Do you carry _nothing_ on you?"

The knife in Don's hand had a dark rosewood hilt, and the blade wasn't shiny like other knives, it was a silvery matte gray, almost like a ceramic knife. There were symbols carved into the blade.

"Let me guess," Dean said. "Sanskirt? Wow you're one for the classics."

"It was one of the original languages born on earth, " Don twirled the blade around on his finger. "This knife was forged the night after Baal turned us, in a fire that burned from the bones of the human sacrifices she took."

"Let me say again _awesome,"_ Dean got out like he had a bad taste in his mouth.

Don didn't comment "As for what the spell entails, it needs two living things-And the use of their blood. So let _me_ say again. Are we ready to continue?"

Sam looked at Dean, and Dean looked at Sam.

"Perfect," Don said looking at both of them. He gestured to the library tables like they were back in his office. "Have a seat gentlemen."

Sam and Dean sat across from each other at one of the center tables, until Don kicked Dean in the shins and motioned for Dean to take the seat _right_ next to Sam.

"What is this, couples therapy?" Dean returned moving to take the chair on Sam's right.

Missouri took up residence in Dean's abandoned seat across the table like a judge surveying her court room.

"First on the agenda I'll need your blood," Don said like he was conducting a morning meeting back at his Law Firm "Both of yours."

Dean turned his palm up and splayed the fingers out. Don hovered over his hand, and drew the knife down, cutting a line across the creases, a well of blood came up on the palm.

Task completed, Don turned to Sam.

Sam drew his forearm out, but Don stopped him.

"Hand. It makes it easier."

Sam gave him a look, but flipped his palm over and Don repeated the same cutting on his hand, making Sam give a quiet wince at the slicing of the blade on his skin.

"Now I need you to join hands," Don said

Both Sam and Dean gave Don the same '_what the hell'_ looks.

"Man, you got some sick way to get enjoyment," Dean returned.

"Dean Winchester," Missouri snapped at him from across the table. "Hold your brother's hand!"

Dean gave half an eye roll, but he slapped his hand in Sam's. The blood in his brother's palm felt sticky and weird against his skin. "Is this the part where we sing Kumbaya?"

"Why do we even need a blood spell?" Sam questioned. "We're brothers, we share the same blood."

"This link isn't about biology." Don answered. "It's about connecting two beings down to their very core essence."

"I'm not going to be able to read his mind or anything am I?" Dean said sounding off put about that idea. "Because Sam and I are close, but even we're not _that_ close."

This isn't "Charmed" Dean," Don said of the campy show on the WB about sister Wiccan Witches "This is real magic. The spell will merge your life essences into one. It won't be like an echo where you feel each other's wounds or pain. Simply as long as one lives, so does the other. But if one of you dies, the other goes down with him."

Don waited to let his words take their full affect before he continued.

"To bind the spell you'll need to focus on one thing that will unite you into one-"

"This doesn't sound creepy and incestuous at all," Dean hissed when Missouri kicked him under the table.

"Because you're brothers, that thing can be a memory," Don went on. "An event that is important to both of you."

"I'm picking the memory," Dean said.

"What? No way," Sam returned, ignoring the fact that he was his bloody hand in Dean's bloody hand and that they were about to do a blood spell.

"C'mon Sammy, you're just going to pick some emo memory about the day I sat in the audience during one of your boring ass little spell offs."

"Oh, like you'll be any better?" Sam countered "You'll have us bind a spell that locks our _essences_ with a memory of you making it to 4th base with Holly Reinhardt in middle school while I was stuck hanging outside the janitors closet keeping surveillance."

"It's not like you didn't have something to do," Dean insisted. "You were my wing man."

"You didn't talk to me for _three_ hours!" Sam said. "My legs fell asleep from standing up so long!" He jumped when something kicked him in the shins.

"Boys!" Missouri never told either of them if she had any children. But judging by the looks she was giving them, she most certainly had disciplined her fair share of them. "You two need to focus before I reach over there and do it for you!-"

Sam and Dean both opened their mouths to counter, but Missouri waved a finger at them. "Ah! No talking, _think."_

"Pittsburgh June of '95," Sam said finally. "Dad let us take the Impala out without him supervising."

Dean had given Sam a head cocked look when he first recited the memory, but then his eyes flashed in recognition.

"We drove to that drive-in theatre and saw _"Poltergeist 3,_ you kept bagging on Carol Anne 's aunt and uncle the entire movie-"

"They were total doushbags who knew jack about ghosts," Dean said. "Frankly they deserved to be chased by that possessed car-"

"Carol Ann had a bit of an awkward thing going on there too-"

"Chick was all teeth and bad lines," Dean returned. "Yeah I remember, we went out to that greasy diner after, the one with the quadruple bypass burger," he shrugged a smile at the memory. "Dad told us to be back by dinner-"

"He was so pissed when he smelled the fries on your breath when we drove up at 10:00," Sam actually laughed for a moment. "It was the first time it was just us hanging out ya know? No looking out for ghosts or responsibilities, just you and me."

Dean didn't say anything, didn't even offer Sam a slap on the back like he had done previously. Because Sam may have remembered the memory differently, but the feeling behind it was the same for Dean.

There was a jolt that originated at their grasped hands, like something electrical had shocked them, pulling them clumsily forward.

"What the hell?" Dean tried to disengage his hand from Sam's, but he found it physically impossible, like it was glued there.

Sam tried the same thing to the same affect. "I can't move-!"

"You're not supposed to," Don stood over their joined hands and recited a rapid succession of words over and over.

The shock jolted up Dean's arm like a taser jolt. Judging by the facial grimacing from his brother, the same was true for Sam. There was an audible sizzling sound, like something was burning.

Don suddenly stopped the chanting like a car that had suddenly slammed on its brakes. And both Dean and Sam's hands came apart forcefully, pulling apart like two things that had been melted together.

"Congratulations gentlemen," Don said.

Dean was slumped halfway over his chair, beside him Sam was pulling himself up in his.

"You've officially become co dependant on each other."

Sam's hand was red and raw in the center, in the center blood there was a burn mark in the shape of a symbol that looked like a tiny tree. Sam raised his hand and stared at it, and when he looked over at his brother, he saw that he was doing the same.

**xxxxXxxx**

Back in 2004 Sam and Dean had found one of the hidden passageways to Hell. It had been at a field in Wyoming, by an abandoned railway line designed by Samuel Colt. The entire place had been one long devil's trap. But years and an apocalypse had happened since that time, not to mention a change of command in Hell.

Which almost guaranteed that any intel they had on hell had more than likely changed, as in 100 percent likely. Throw in the fact that neither one of them had an ideal in _hell_ (all puns intended) as to where the Gates of Hell with the capital 'G' and the capital 'H' were located, and the entire thing was basically a fucked up pile of shit.

Which left them doing recon to any type of ever constant demonic symbols or omens which would indicate a hellish presence always in the area.

Dean called hunters from so far back in their dad's journal that many of the numbers were no longer in service. Which in the hunter community meant that they had changed phones, or they were dead.

Sam was pacing the library calling a string of numbers that Garth had given to him, Hunters that Garth had hooked up with.

Dean hung up his call in frustration, but Sam was still on the phone with Garth. And judging by the jabbering he heard on the other end Garth had 'big news'

"Garth, _Garth!"_ Sam shouted into the phone, the hand that held it had a white bandage wrapped around it. "Yeah man, I can hear you. And you're sure they're reliable?" Sam listened to the other end "Great, okay." Sam hung up.

"What's up?" Dean asked, stepping over to Sam.

"Garth found a hunter who might know where the gates are," Sam answered.

"Where at?" Dean asked.

"We're meeting Garth at one of his safe house boats in Baton Rouge-"

"Wait, you're telling me that Garth has safe house _boats?-_"

"I quit asking about Garth a while back man," Sam insisted. "This hunter friend of his has been holing up there. "

"Who is this guy?" Dean cut in.

"Garth just called him T."

"_T?"_ Dean said. "As in they call me Mr.-"

"Yeah," Sam agreed. "Told him we could meet up with in a day and a half."

"Great," Dean said, looking over to where Don was leafing through a very old volume of Law Books in the corner and Missouri was packing the herbs back into her black bag. "Then you need to get rid of the house guests." he patted Sam on the back and walked into the kitchen to find the bottle of Wild Turkey he had stashed in with the pots and pans.

Sam gave him a look of bafflement.

30 minutes later, Dean was loading their gear into the Impala. Sam was helping Missouri place her stuff inside her tan Crown Victoria that was parked on the other side of the street.

Don Stark had, as Dean put it ten minutes earlier '_zapped'_ himself from the bunker. He did give Dean some departing words which clearly indicated that he was _not_ to be bothered anymore unless he and Sam decided to commit a blasphemy.

"We appreciate you coming here," Sam held the driver's side door open to Missouri's car.

"This thing you're doing Sam," Missouri said turning to him. "You and that fool hardy brother of yours have done your fair share of crazy. But this will top them all." She almost looked like she wanted to slap some sense into Sam, but at the last minute her hand brushed the side of his face. "You boys take care of yourselves," Missouri yelled this so that Dean would hear her too. "Or you'll have me to answer too."

"Yes ma'am," Sam said.

Missouri got into her car and started the engine. Sam closed her door and the tan car drove off down the dark single lane asphalt road lit up from the night by orange street lamps.

Sam watched her go before walking over to the Impala. He turned to face the bunker, it didn't look like a whole lot, especially in the dark. But looking like a big deal wasn't the point.

"Alright, come on little brother," Dean said "Sentiment time over, we need to burn some miles."

Sam turned away from the bunker and opened the passenger side door of the Impala with a 'squeak', dropping into the passenger seat.

Dean blew out a breath into the blackness, and opened his door. He then looked over at the bunker, the same way as Sam, before climbing inside the car and cutting the engine on.


	7. Morning

**xxxxxXxxxxx**

** Chapter Six- "Morning"**

"_No there ain't no rest for the wicked, until we close our eyes for good."_

~Cage the Elephant "Ain't No Rest for the Wicked"

**xxxxxXxxxxx**

Baton Rouge, Louisiana

Two Days Later

12:30 pm

The heat was so hot that it had a taste. It formed mirages on the road in the absence of stop signs. Farmland sprouted up on either side of the road, a few cows munching the grass behind barbed wire fences.

The windows of the Impala were rolled down and the glare of the afternoon sun burned warm on Sam's arms. The sleeves of his red and white plaid shirt were rolled up, and a pair of dark brown tinted aviator sunglasses shielded his eyes from the worst of glare.

He had taken over driving when then hit the Louisiana border at 7:00 am. Beside him Dean was snoring like a buzz saw, drooling against the passenger side window.

Sam reached over to the control knobs on the radio, and turned up AC/DC to a decibel level that could be heard from space.

The reaction was instantaneous. Dean shot up from the passenger seat like a spastic cat.

Sam took his hand off the volume knob and laid it innocently back on the wheel "Morning."

Dean glared ice picks into every part of Sam's body. "Where are we?" He wiped the drool off his face with the back of his hand.

"Almost there," Sam answered. "We crossed into Louisiana about four hours ago."

Dean groaned a bit as he stretched his neck, eliciting a few 'pops' from the vertebra.

The farmland had given way on one side a brownish muddy river as the road turned into a suspension bridge. A white river boat full of tourists paddled its way underneath them, and the air shifted from sweltering to slightly more bearable from the breeze that blew in off the water.

The traffic was light. Going the same way as the Impala were an old beat up looking red Ford pickup truck and a semi truck absent of its trailer so that it looked like it had been stunted in its growth. In the opposite direction a yellow El Camino chugging on a bad radiator moved at a cruising pace, dark black smoke billowed out of its tail pipe.

The bridge eventually bled back into a riverbank of tall grass baking in the heat. Dotted around the embankment was a long stretch of dock that seemed to be as much a natural part of the land as the trees or the grass. Over a dozen boats were tied to this dock.

There was a blank slate of pavement that lead down to the boats, like a parking lot created by accident.

Sam eased the car down to this space and cut the engine off. He exited the car and was immediately assaulted by a wave of shimmery heat that now could fully unleash itself on him without the shelter of the Impala.

Dean opened his door, shedding his jacket as he did so, now in black shirt sleeves. "Someone needs to turn down the sun." He wiped his forehead with the back of his hand.

Sam raised both arms and framed his face with his forehead on his hands.

Ahead of them the boats bumped and rocked in the river tied to posts of wood darkened from the water.

"Garth say which one of these tug boats his contact's at?" Dean asked.

"He just said come to the dock and we'd receive further instructions."

Dean turned to Sam, because that was a half assed answer for a half assed answer "Further Instructions? What, you mean like Survivor?"

"I don't know man," Sam responded. "It's not like I have a deeper understanding of Garth's logic over you."

"_Hombres!" _

There was a 'chugging' sound from an outboard motor and the river water was sliced in half by a flat topped pure white house boat with a clap board façade. Standing at the railed porch/dock of the boat was Garth, manning a throttle. An radio sat beside him blasting Cage the Elephant's _'Ain't No Rest for the Wicked'._ He was dressed in khaki shorts and white button up shirt sleeves, brown sandals on his feet, and a straw fedora on his head.

Dean watched Garth motor into an empty spot on the dock next to a rusted looking fishing schooner. "We'll that's not something you see every day."

Sam made a '_uh huh'_ noise in his throat and followed Dean down the slope of pavement towards the boat.

As soon as Garth docked, he jumped off the boat. "Sup brothas?," Garth immediately grabbed Dean in a hug before he could do anything but grunt in surprise. "It's good to see ya," Sam was next in the hugging line.

"Thanks for coming out," Garth punched Sam in the arm.

Dean looked over at the boat, a Seattle Seahawks pennant was flying on the masthead instead of a flag, and an red Thermos cooler sat next to it. "Exactly how many of these safe house boats do you have man?"

"Just the two," Garth said like two safe house boats was the norm. "This one though, she's my pride and joy. Won her in a high stakes poker game down on the Bayou" He jumped back on the boat and grabbed pile of rope from off the dock and tossed it over to the dock. "I call her: Jezebel." He pointed to the lower half of the boat where there was a stain of white wash on the hull. "Had to take off the pinup to keep it less conspicuous when she got commissioned for a safe house."

"You had a pinup of _Jezebel _painted on this thing?" Dean asked.

"Full straddle on the Tower of Babel," Garth said while he tied the anchor rope to a pillar on the dock.

Dean stared at the mismatched patch of white paint, like he was trying to picture it.

Sam cleared his throat, loudly. "So your contact-"

Garth was normally a guy who had such an off and light personality that it was hard to picture him as a Hunter at all. But he interrupted Sam with a cut off gestures at his neck and such a serious look on his face that Sam instantly shut up.

"Not here," Garth gestured towards the boat's cabin which rocked at a gentle pace with the movement of the water. He climbed back on board the boat.

Sam followed him, having to stretch his long legs over the hull because there was no ramp. Dean imitated Sam, and climbed over _carefully_ because the boat hit him in places a little too 'snugly' for his liking.

Above them the Seahawks Pennant started flapping in a warm breeze that came hard off the river.

"Yeah, just three dudes in a houseboat with a football flag," Dean muttered to himself "No one will notice."

There was a trip down 6 steps and Sam had to stoop almost in half before he beaned himself on post of the door that led inside the cabin.

"Sorry about that," Garth said, his body an outline of black shadow after being in the sun for so long. "My contact's a little insistent about keeping things on the DL."

The interior of the cabin was white like the outside, about the size of a studio apartment. A box fan affixed to the window blew a steady stream of relatively cool air. The furniture was all rattan with flowered patterned cushions on the single sofa and matching chair. One black floor lamp was lit, competing with the afternoon sunlight that filtered in through the bay style windows hung with venetian blinds.

"So this is the Jezebel," Dean surveyed the group of hanging ferns in one corner. Beside it was a wooden end table with white and blue china cat and a woven bowl of potpourri. "Classy."

"Thanks," Garth said, sounding like a proud dad with his kid. "Me and this old girl go way back."

On the flowered couch cushions of the sofa there was a moleskin roll, half open, revealing a wicked looking set of black handled hunting knives.

Sam removed his glasses and hung them on the front of his shirt. He stepped over to the sofa and picked one of the knives up. It came away with a '_swish'_ from it's holding spot. "Who's are these?" The blade was heavy, pure silver two hand spans long and forked at the end.

"My contact's," Garth said, sounding like a CIA Agent protecting his charge.

Dean walked over and surveyed the knife in Sam's hand. Besides that knife, there was also what looked like a switch blade. Dean reached next to it and pulled out an iron ice pick with a black handle. "That's my kind of hunter-" He set the weapon back down. "We gonna meet this guy today, or is there a secret decoder ring and treasure hunt process to go through yet?"

"Sorry bra," Garth apologized. "One of those skittish hunters, likes to make sure things stay within a circle. I don't question it. Her knife collections not the only thing that's bad ass-"

"Whoa, _wait-"_ Dean cut off. "You're saying Mr. T is a _she?" _

"_Is that a problem?"_

Dean and Sam turned around. There were a brief set of steps that led away into another room. The door was now opened, revealing it to be a bedroom with a queen sized bed with an unmade white comforter.

The floor underneath their feet was wood veneer, and a click of heeled boots bounced off them. She was a petite thing. Dark hair, dark eyes tucked in tight denim and form fitting brown leather, an equal sided cross on a leather cord hung deep in the curve of full breasts.

"_Tamara?"_ Sam said.

Tamara's lips pulled back into the briefest flicker of a smile, and her pace quickened. She embraced Sam without words, then moved on to Dean.

Both brothers received her hugs warmly, if not a little baffled.

"What are you doing here?" Dean asked her.

"I heard you boys needed a hand," Tamera said, her British accent working its way into her words.

"How've you been?" Sam asked the woman he hadn't seen in over five years. The last time they had all been together ended in a demon fight and burning her husband's dead body on a funeral pyre.

"I've had my days Sam," Tamara admitted. "After Isaac, I just sort of drifted, went on a bit of a spree killing demons." her voice was thick, even with the laughter she tried to work around it.

"Nothing wrong with that," Dean said honestly.

Tamera turned to him, her eyes sorrowful, " Except it never brought Isaac back, or my little girl's. Damn nearly got me killed a couple of times though."

"Is that why you're on lock down?" Sam asked.

"Ran into a nest of demons a couple of months ago. One of them was high ranking and supposedly released the Seven on her command 4-years-ago. Figured it was a much of a shot at vengeance as I was getting."

"You get her?" Dean asked.

"More like the other way round," Tamara held out her right hand, the pinky finger and the ring finger were half missing, molted over with knobby scars that trailed down the remains of her fingers and halfway down her hand.

Dean winced, so did Sam.

"The bitch was pretty powerful, she put a bounty on my head," Tamara looked over to Garth, who wasn't talking, a near first for him. "I called Garth and he set me up here."

"Wait?" Dean turned to Garth "She's not your special lady?-"

"No bra, " Garth said waving Dean off at the same time Tamera shot them both a weird look. "She holes up in Shagana Michigan," he turned to Tamera with an almost apologetic look in his face. "No offense meant Tamera, I mean I _do_ have an affinity for chocolate."

"Don't worry about it mate," Tamera returned, her weird look still on her face.

"Uh-" Sam broke in and cleared his throat . He turned to Tamera "This demon, do you remember her name?"

Tamara nodded "Baal. She was one of the original demons created by Lucifer after his fall."

Dean and Sam shared the same look.

"Where'd this fight go down?" Dean asked.

"New Orleans," Tamara said. This time it was her turn to look at Sam and Dean. "Garth said you're trying to close the Gates of Hell."

Dean turned to Garth "You _told?"_

"It was the word on the street," Garth returned.

Dean wasn't comforted. "_Word on the street?"_

"It's alright Dean," Tamara said. "I haven't told anyone, I haven't even been outside of this bloody boat in weeks. You boys tried to help Isaac and I all those years ago; I'm just trying to return the favor. I only have one condition. You let me come along."

"No."

"Not a chance."

Sam and Dean said at the same moment.

"I'm the only one here who can get an exact bead on where this demon is," Tamara insisted.

"The answer is still no," Dean returned.

"I'm a _hunter_ Dean!" Tamera yelled at him. She barely reached to Dean's shoulder, but her voice made up for her lack of height.

"No, you're invested!" Dean yelled back. "Ganking Baal is about payback for you Tamara, it's just gonna get you killed-"

"Who says that's a bloody bad thing!?" Tamera screamed right in Dean's face, her eyes were wide, opened like windows. "I've lost _everything_, The only thing that's kept me going this long is the thought of spilling that bitch's insides on her outsides."

"Dean's right," Sam said. He took a single step towards her. "Don't walk yourself to the slaughter house."

"I can't do this anymore Sam!" Tamara turned to him. She wasn't crying, but her eyes pooled with emotions. "Living without Isaac-" she twisted her head and her expression became something sorrowful. "I don't _work_ without him!—What would you do Sam? If it were Dean killed by this thing-?"

The flickered gaze passed from Dean to Sam, and Sam to Dean.

"You let this slide? To be alone with nothing but morality?"

Sam was strong in a myriad of ways. Living this life in the last 8 years had forced him to be, both on the physical and mental planes. But there was one thing, one aspect, that no amount of hunting could ever mess with.

And it was standing right in front of him.

"You lead us to this demon," Sam said to Tamara.

"Sam-" Dean cut in.

"But you follow our lead after that," Sam went on. "No swan diving."

"_Dude,"_ Dean said a little more forcefully . He'd seen the look in Tamara's eyes before, the half crazed wild look when everything was gone except you and the thing that took them.

Tamera side stepped Garth to get to the couch. She unsheathed the same knife that Sam had been looking at earlier. The metal blade glinted off the sliver of afternoon sunlight.

"Let's go hunting gents."

**xxxxXxxxx**

New Orleans, Louisiana

Time in the French Quarter seemed to have stopped in the 1800's. The buildings were heavy masonry bricks, gated with balconies that spilled out Oleander and Jasmine from clay pots. These two combined formed a thick perfume that wafted up into the air.

A black Landau carriage pulled by a single white horse rolled by on cobblestone river that flowed in between buildings lit by hanging lantern lights strung up between them.

It was 4:30, and the sun had since cooled down from its earlier attack and now shown a warm amber that bled over the buildings.

Mardi Gras had passed weeks ago, leaving graveyard remains of colorful carnival masks and beer bottles abandoned by the tourists in their drunkard hazes, with handfuls of beads that leant their splashes of color in between these garbage items.

Still, even without the benefit of an all night, all day party event, the French Quarter was alive with tourists. Older couples who came for the historic nostalgia and college kids who poured into the bars to get shit faced without having to have a real reason other than it was kind of a rite of passage.

Dean looked in disapproval at where he parked on the side of the street next to a junk heap and an overflowing trash can. No one was around, but he could practically _feel_ the thieves lurking, waiting for their shot.

"Dude," Sam said as he stepped off the curb and saw that Dean didn't. "Let's go, she'll be fine." Sam was never in love with the Impala the way Dean was, but he quit questioning it. Dean was overly obsessive with the car, like overly-massively-balls-out-crazy obsessive, and that was it. Move on.

Dean laid a hand on the Impala's hood still warm from the engine, leaning down to the car like he was whispering in someone's ear. "Don't worry baby, I'll come back for you."

Tamara's boots crunched on the gravel as she walked over to Dean. "You two need a minute alone?"

Dean pulled back, his face like a worried dad about to drop his kid off somewhere sceazy looking: "I'm good." He slung his faded army surplus bag over his shoulder, the color once green was now more of a muddled gray. "Sam?"

Sam didn't have to ask what Dean meant when he said his name. "Yeah, I'm good."

"Then let's hit it ladies," Dean said.

They had parked the car behind a two story bricked building with a tourist trap storefront on the ground level, and a residence on top. The noises on the street were muffled from where they were standing, but as they started to walk into the district the noise poured out around them at full blast.

Jazz music from a corner pub spilled out of the open door. The smell of beer and fried everything blew on them like a breeze. People were thick on the street, laughing, browsing through cheap trinkets underneath yawning awnings that only the locals knew were pieces of crap.

Dean had gone to literal heaven. It had nothing on the French Quarter. The ratio of drunk college girls to favorable men was insanely one sided (one sided in the good way.) And beer and booze practically flowed in the street.

Beside a collection of Tarot Card readers and Medium shops there was a bar, almost squashed in between them. It's lit up neon sign proclaimed it as: _"Barry's"_ and the signed formed an arrow point down to a set of steps that descended away from the street.

"I feel like a drink," Dean announced. "Anyone else?"

Sam looked at him cockeyed. "Dude we're kind of in the _middle_ of something-"

"Tamara hasn't been here in months," Dean cut him off, turning to Tamara "No offense, but your intel might be slightly off from the lapse-"

"My intel is never off mate!" Tamara argued, her voice a growl.

"Neither is mine," Dean said, he nodded into the direction of the bar.

The neon sign was bright, the letters cutting off and remerging to spell out _'Barry's'_ on letter at a time.

Sam watched the sign do this cycle with a narrowed eye look. The letters faded out, and turned the sign to black. The '_B'_ began to reemerge, casting a glow over the blacked out letters. And in those few seconds the illumination caught a set of symbols painted over the sign in a translucent paint.

"Angel wards," Sam said as the sign lit back up to its full glory. "I'm guessing that's not a nest of drunk frat guys in there."

"At least not alone," Tamara watched the bouncer at the front check the ID of a young looking blonde kid. The cursing could be heard from where they stood as he got turned away. "The clientele has to be exclusive if they're not just possessing random wankers off the street."

"Exclusive enough to know the whereabouts to an original demon?" Sam laughed dryly in surprise at Dean. Even after all these years, he still had a problem with underestimating Dean. He didn't do it on purpose, he just knew where his brother's weaknesses lay.

"So, how about that drink huh?" Dean said. He leaned in close to Sam "Remember how you called me a genius at the start of all this?"

Sam dry laughed again. "I'm starting to."

The bar was across the street, and they made their way through a throng of people, half of them drunk. They emerged on the other side, Sam now sporting a string of beads around his neck that a random redhead had thrown around him, as well as herself.

"Work hard and play hard," Dean said of the bright purple beads around his brother's neck. "That's my boy."

Sam gave him a look and threw the beads off into the gutter.

There wasn't much of a line at the bar, the burly looking bouncer doing his job of keeping people away. He was a white guy, bald, covered in tattoos from his arms up to his neck, snakes mostly that seemed to slither as he moved. His eyes flicked over to Dean, Sam, and Tamara as made it to the head of the line.

"ID?" The guy's voice thick and rumbled like an overworked engine.

"You know we left in our other pants," Dean said.

The bouncer didn't have any amusement on his face. "Alight, you two and your girl need to clear out. No ID, no entrance. "

Dean dropped his head in a laugh "You see the funny thing about that is," he pulled a jagged serrated knife from his pocket – Ruby's demon slaying knife – and grabbed the guy by the neck. There was a scuffle, Dean was pinned against the wall for a second, but then he had the upper hand, the knife at the bouncer's throat. Sam blocked them from view with his height and broad shoulders.

Dean sliced a knick against the man's neck, a trickle of blood came away. But that was it, there was no spark, no shimmer reaction from the knife.

"You're not a demon," Dean said, voice barely able to cover the surprise.

The guy actually smiled "That's not a requirement."

The man jerked away, but had his head slammed up against the brick by Dean.

"Let me guess, you made a deal with one of those ass clowns inside, and this is your end of it? Name on the business cards, but not part of the entourage?"

"I play body guard for these guys," the man said, like it was a casual conversation, minus the knife and two monstrous guys at his throat. "I get to keep my chestnuts out of the open fire-"

"You honestly think they're going to honor that?" Sam retorted.

"Bargain's not to let me live a long and fruitful life Gigandor, it's to raise me through the ranks when I get to hell."

"You want to be a demon," Tamara said. It wasn't a question.

The guy smiled in the same way Jeffery had smiled at Dean right before he tried to summon _his demon_ back. "Give the lady a prize."

Tamara unsheathed her knife and stuck it at waist level, barbed right against his balls. "You're going to let us walk in unscathed, or we blab to your motley crew in there how you let three Hunters walk right through the door."

There was a _'click'_ sound as Sam pointed the muzzle of his gun right into the man's neck, next to Dean's knife. "You get all of that?"

** xxxxXxxxx **

There were Dives, skuzzy places that Dean and Sam had seen enough of, that smelled like piss and blood, and rancid things.

And then there was this place.

It was more shadow then light and the smell of stale beer and sweat hung like cloying perfume in the air. There were bodies everywhere, not dead, walking and talking, and drinking, all visible parts pierced with something metal or dangling, or both.

Before Meg had changed camps, she had possessed a young girl, had dyed and shorn her hair and swathed her in leather. Dean had met the girl she was before, or at least her ghost. Walking through this almost biker gang of a group, he wondered what they had all looked like before they had been whored out by demons.

Two women looked up from their game of pool on the red felt pool table. A brunette with princess curls and a pierced upper lip watched them like prey. "You boys look lost." Her friend leaned on her pool cue and looked over at them too.

"You know," Sam bit his lower lip and worked his mouth into a smile, slight, and closed."There's a joke here. About three Hunters who walk into a bar full of demons-" he pulled out a long bladed knife, the Angel Blade Meg had given them. "I just can't quite find it."

"Look at you being all cynical Sam," the brunette said. "It's making me all tingly in my private places."

"That's what you get for not wearing a body condom," Tamara said, her knife tight in her hand.

The brunette's eyes went pitch black as she smiled "The Winchesters breaking in a new whore, how quaint."

Tamara didn't flinch at the name, she stepped closer to the demon, knife poised to slash "I'm a old whore so how about we get on with it?"

The girl shrugged. "If you insist."

Dean and Sam had started hunting on their own when they were 26 and 22 respectively. And while they weren't kids at the time, they were still green. Now 9-years-later, they had earned a veteran status that neither of them wanted.

But it made them notice things, the angel wards outside, and now, the way the people at the bar, the _demons_ had all stopped talking, stopped doing anything, and were standing up as a collective, watching them.

"Amy – don't be rude."

The voice came from way in the back, where the bar was situated against the left wall. There were three high backed wooden seats, and they were all empty except for one.

A woman with an inverted bob of golden blonde hair sat with her back to them, dressed in all black leather.

The crowd of Demons behind her parted and they formed a wall of bodies on either side.

At the end of the bar sat an old Jute Box. It was covered in a layer of dust that went down three finger lengths deep, and was rusted all along the top of the dome. It looked look like the slightest move would send it crumbling to pieces.

The blonde raised a hand, and tucked a piece of hair behind her ear.

There was a whirring movement as the jute box lit up and picked up a 45 record from the pile and dropped it on the turn style. The needle lowered, and a plunking guitar opening began leading into a single female voice

"_Come little children, I'll take thee away_

_Into a land of enchantment"_

The woman's shoulders hunched back as she threw back a shot and swiveled slowly on her stool.

Her face was that of a classic beauty, round cheek bones, heart shaped lips crimson with red lipstick, and roan brown eyes – at least once. Now they stared out over the crowd a solid black, not even like a film or coating like other demons, but empty dark holes in shape of human eyes.

"_Come little children, the times come to play-"_

She climbed off the stool on silver buckled biker boots. "They came to see me, after all." Her voice warped at the end like the jute box needle had dragged itself across the 45. She walked at leisurely pace over to them.

"Hello again Tamara."

"_-here in my garden of shadows."_

**xxxxXxxxx**

None of the demons made a move, they stood like a sentry around the blonde, but it didn't put Dean at ease, he could hear them all breathing. And breathing demons were never a good thing.

The tinkling little song continued like a creeping of spiders dropping from the rafters above

"_Weep Not Poor Children  
For Life Is This Way  
Murdering Beauty And Passions-"_

"Baal , is it?" Ruby's knife was poised in Dean's hand. "I gotta say, after all the hype, meeting you is kind of a letdown."

Baal smiled at this, like Dean was an amusing Idiot Boy she paid a penny to see dance at circus. She raised an arm, bent up at the elbow, and the music abruptly cut off. "Likewise," She talked warped-record-scratch voice. She blinked, the eyes remained coal black, but the voice changed, became higher, female. "But what do the kids say now a days?" She flicked her dead eyes over Sam, one appendage at a time. "All is vanity."

She turned her attention over to Tamara "Don't worry baby girl, I haven't forgotten you," She stepped over to her in that lazy pace Demons would because they knew a challenge would end in them getting a shiny new pair of human blood gloves. "You know, me and this Dallas Cowboy Cheerleader have been shacked up so long that there's not an _ounce_ of her left inside. One year of solid S&M, and now-Too bad I didn't know you back when pretty young thing. " she sighed a un-amused sigh like a jilted lover. "That question you want to know." She cocked her head. "The one I fingered you for-"she began to circle Tamara like she was assessing the appearance of a steer "It's true." She leant down by Tamara's ear and stage whispered the next words, almost seductively. I was the one who released the Seven from hell," she pulled back with a smile. "But in all honesty if your husband's ball sac hadn't been empty he would still be alive-"

There was a wail, feral and angry from Tamara and she lunged with her forked knife. Baal didn't raise a hand, but blinked, a single blink and Tamara flew backwards, hitting the pool table, and landing on it in a heap.

It hit the fan then, Sam stabbed the first demon that came at him from the right, then the one that grabbed him a choke hold he stabbed up, hitting it in between the ribs. It screamed and sputtered out like a dying light.

Dean dodged the attack at his head and nailed the first demon with his knife.

Sam stabbed one of the demons in the leg and it wailed in humanly, dropping to the ground. He ran over to Tamara who had regained consciousness and pulled her to her feet.

"_Enough!"_ the voice was nightmarish, dark, deep. A roll of booming thunder clapped outside and the sun suddenly vanished behind a mass of black gray clouds

Baal raised her arm straight up and Sam was levitated 5 feet into the air, choking, grasping at his neck, the angel sword falling to the ground.

Dean immediately made a move, but was yanked back like he hit an invisible wall.

She turned to Dean "You can kill every demon in here, and you still wouldn't touch my Legion," she looked up at Sam, at the gray tint coloring his skin. "But all I have to do is snap it's neck, and you're an only child, so how about we make a deal?" She turned back to Dean, "You're holding something of mine." Your brother's little demon whore Ruby stole it off of me way back when. Give it back, Sam's lungs get to inflate."

Sam's skin was no longer tinged in gray, it _was_ gray. Dean could barely see a rise and fall of his chest. The demon knife in the hands of a demon; it wasn't a plan, it was idiotic. But Dean didn't think, he laid it on the ground, hands up.

Baal smiled and held out her hand. "Wonderful." The knife pulled towards her, at the same time Sam dropped to the ground. He didn't move.

Dean dropped in front of Sam. No one touched him, they didn't even try. _"Come on," _ He whispered waiting for any kind of reaction from Sam.

"Are you praying to God Dean?" Baal cocked a head in amusement, like the way a beginning psychopath would do when they were five and ripping legs off live squirrels. "Or to me? You know we're about the same age, and I'm a lot less self righteous-"

"_Shut. UP!"_ Dean had a wealth of cleaver quips and remarks to every form of supernatural entity he had come across. But, leaning over his brother's still form, what came out was the rawest, feral form of it.

Sam suddenly lurched up choking, he grabbed at his neck, and he spat hard. A splatter of dark red painted the wooden floor.

Dean grabbed Sam's arms and hauled him to his feet.

"Not feeling too hot are we champ?" Baal smiled, black eyes glancing to the blood stained on the floor. She kicked the heel of her boot over the wetness. "You hang out too long on the TB floor Sammy-" the gaze shifted, her voice going back to her true one, the nightmarish sound: "Or is there something you're not telling me?"

"Don't sell yourself short, _bitch_," Dean said, a firm hand on Sam's shoulder. "There's a lot of things we aren't telling you."

Tamara had crept along the floor, her hand closed on the hilt of her knife. She had done it so quickly and quietly that not even the demons noticed what had happened.

She gripped the blade at chest level and drew it at Baal's back.

The demon turned, and grabbed the blade in her hand, pulling hard and _up_ on Tamara's arm, torquing it back. The knife fell to the ground. "If you wanted to be reunited with your husband sweetheart, all you had to do was ask."

Tamara screamed something loud, no syllabic and angry. She drew her forked knife from her jacket, lunging right at Baal's chest.

The demon intercepted the lunge, and the blade came down hard on Tamara's chest. Her scream died in her throat.

"_No!"_ Sam thunderous barked voice screamed out. He pulled the sawed off he was carrying in front of him, and fired two buck shots at the demon.

The salt bullets were meant to repel ghosts, but Demons weren't immune to the purification of salt either. It jerked Baal's body forward and she screamed, which popped the lights out over head. The knife dropped from her hand.

But Baal didn't drop as Sam caught Tamara's arm and picked her up as she struggled to breathe.

Baal turned to the other demons and said something in a dead language in the low scraped voice, that vibrated the room and blew out the windows, blasting in a torrent of rain.

Immediately bodies surged forward wailing. They climbed over the wooden furniture like a swarm of locusts.

There was a sound, like a retracting blade. It came from the middle of the room where a tall 250 pound man in frayed jeans and a leather vest stood.

But it didn't come from him. Something leapt out from behind him. A little girl with stringy matted black hair in a torn burlap dress. She raised an ashen white face up, and her neck twisted almost completely around glaring hatefully:

"Hello Sam." her voice was the sound of nails on a chalkboard. It was the little girl, the Archi Demon sent by Azazel years ago when Sam and the other psychics had been taken to that ghost town in Wyoming. "Miss me?"

Dean took a cue from Sam and shot a round right into the Demon's chest. Her head flipped back around. She wailed and leapt like an attacking wolf. Dean picked up the demon knife off the floor and plunged it down to the hilt into her gut. She screamed and dropped to the ground like a stone.

A pile demons dropped onto Sam, making him loose his grip on Tamara.

"Tamara!" Sam screamed as his arms were pinned down by the troop.

Tamara had crashed to the and two female demons immediately pounced on her, one of them shoving a fist into the stab wound in her chest.

Tamara screamed.

"Fingered by two different girls?" The redheaded demon said with a smirk, going in deeper into Tamara's chest. "_Slut."_

Sam kicked the nearest Demon, breaking its human legs. He clawed his way back up and reached for his gun, shooting both women in the back.

They screamed, one of them falling directly on Tamara.

She kicked the demon o off as Sam's arm hovered in her face.

"Come on!" Sam grabbed the woman back up, ducking his head over hers a second later when a machete flew at them.

Tamara was gurgling and coughing, fingernails deep into the flesh of Sam's necks.

"_Exorcizamus te omnius immudus spiritus-"_ Tamara chanted out the exorcism, blood dripping down her lip. _"Omnis Santanica potestas, omnis incursio-"_

Her voice started to die out as she began to choke on blood.

Heavy rounds blew from Sam's gun, throwing back Demons who made a move towards them.

"_Infernalis adversarii, Omnis Legio. Omnis congregation et secta diabolcia!" _He began chanting the exorcism where Tamara had left off. Over the blast of gunfire he could hear Dean joining him, their timbres loud, melding into each other.

Dean threw a demon over a table and stabbed it in the leg with the knife. It wailed and an orange-yellow light flashed from the jagged hole. He then took a shot at its heart and it dropped.

They managed to reach the end of the exorcism, and the screams of over 50 demons tore through the air as black smoke vomited themselves out of the mouths of their hosts and ripped through the floor.

When the blackness cleared bodies were lined in heaps on the floor like a mass suicide. But the blonde haired body of Baal wasn't among them.

"Go, _Go!"_ Dean screamed pushing Sam over the people and through a saloon style door that blurred into a kitchen that blurred into the back of the bar, an alleyway, hung with bright red flags flapping against the dying sun.

"Tamara-" She came away sticky blood from Sam's jacket as he set her on the ground beside a pile of wooden fruit crates bound for the trash. Her head rolled limply on her neck.

"Hey, hey! Look at me," The wound in her abdomen was gapping and jagged and leaking more blood like an overflowing river. "You're going to be fine, alright?"

Dean was in front of them both, keeping an eye out to the street that was partly visible in front of them, colored red and white from a parade going down it. "Car's about 300 yards down the road, we need to move!" he came back to where Sam and Tamara were.

Sam ripped off the sleeve of his jacket and was pressing it into Tamara's chest.

She groaned, and reared at the pressure. "Royal Street," her words were heaved pants. "One block Southeast. It's there." she spat blood onto Sam's shirt.

"Alright, come on," Dean said.

"No!" Tamara shouted "Not me," her chest moved hard just to continue breathing. Her eyes rolled over to Sam and Dean. "Go!"

"Not without you," Sam argued.

"Sam's right," Dean said. "We're not leaving you here!"

"I did what I could Dean," she coughed massively. "But I died the same day Isaac did," her body started shaking spasmodically. She held out her knife, stained in dark blood, shoving it, hilt first, at Sam. "You finish it. Kill that bitch for both of us, understand?"

Her eyes were full of pain, raw, bleeding pain, but, for one moment they let up, a brief break in the cloud, and a smile pulled weakly at her face: "Never worked with more finer hunters than you."

She coughed once more, hard, then her head fell back against the crate, half on Sam's arm and she didn't move again.

"Hey!" Sam grabbed at her neck, "No-Tamara-!"

"Tamara!-" Dean watched the woman not breathing, not moving.

Sam felt a rush of emotion move through him like a chill, he stared up at Dean, then back down at Tamara.

"_FUCKING HELL!"_ Dean's scream echoed like a gunshot. He punched the brick wall of the bar.

"Sorry,"

The voice made Dean jump up and turn around

The brunette from the bar stood at the end of the alleyway, her green eyes slid black. "Is this a family moment, or can anyone crash?"

Sam slid Tamara's limp head to the ground and stood up from his crouch.

"Don't look so shocked there boys," the demon crunched over the debris on the road with stiletto boots. "You think a simple exorcism from Beginner's Latin class can take down something like me?"

Dean reached his hand to the hilt of the angel knife "Where's your friend?"

"Signing your death warrants over to the new boss." She said, a smile sickeningly on her face. "All that paperwork makes me miss when Lucifer was back to running things. This new guy's a dick in an Armani businessman."

"So you're just Baal's bitch?" Sam asked, voice full of malice, Tamara's knife in his hand, the blood on it still warm.

"Appearances are deceiving sweetness," she returned. "My name may be _Amy_, but, Baal and I are old school mates. And trust me, my skills will leave you screaming blood."

Sam laughed, that low quiet predatory laugh, that made things tingle from underestimation of what stood in front of them. "You tell that to the last guy you couldn't fuck over too?"

"Believe me baby," Amy said, her voice low "I could fuck you over," she dropped her eyes low and traveled up. "Any time."

Sam looked at her. "How about now?"

Dean moved the knife in his hand, at her back.

Amy turned in anger and twisted Dean's arm backwards. "Is that the best you got?" Amidst Dean's grunted yell, she took the knife from his hand.

The eyes of the girl she was riding looked down in confusion at the buck knife in her hand.

"Not really." Dean said at the same moment she whipped around.

Right into the face of Sam who gutted her through with the Angel blade.

Amy screamed, the sound of 600 people dying at once being projected on a loud speaker.

Sam held her body up as it jerked and seized, and watched the light go out in her eyes. She gave one last shudder and Sam dropped her to a heap on the ground.

Sam reached into the pocket of his canvas jacket and pulled out a crumpled piece of paper. _"Ka ne na dhar!"_

A black thin trail of smoke poured from Amy's glazed open eyes. It traveled through the air, and underwent a metamorphosis as it neared Sam, turning to a glowing yellow light that soaked its way up the hand that was holding the piece of paper.

Sam screamed and his feet collapsed out from under him. His body hit the ground with a shock that couldn't be absorbed by the concrete, so instead it was absorbed by him.

"_Sam!"_

Everything was sideways and pain, just pain, _tearing_ at him. Something lifted him up, the world went vertical in a dizzying rush. Sam smelled whiskey and leather, and cheetos, and blood.

"Dean-" Sam knew Dean by all senses combined, and by each one individually. He groped, he couldn't walk. He still tried.

"_Sammy! Goddamnit! hang in there-!"_

Screams from far away, a siren.

"Dean-" Dean was a blurred stop motion photo, moving at a disjointed frame by frame image. "Tamara-We can't leave her here."

"_Don't close your eyes, you hear me!"_

Things stopped making sense after that. Voices, racing, familiar, something of his name over and over. There was a light, a blinding light that poured heat into every orifice of his skin like he fell into a too warm bath and drowned.

The light exploded, and everything stopped.


	8. Afternoon

**xxxxXxxxx**

**Chapter Seven - "Afternoon"**

"_How did it get late so soon? It's night before it's afternoon."_

~Dr. Seuss

**xxxxXxxxx**

The water ran crimson. It wasn't biblical. For once in his life, Dean wished it were Goddamn biblical. Instead it was made of earth, red and white plaid cotton, stiff with drying blood that came away en mass in the chipped enamel sink with the broken mirror that hung above it.

Sam's duffel was leaning against the exposed metal piping of the sink. The clothes in were wrinkled, and hadn't been washed in a week, but they were a far cry better than the shirt that Dean was trying to scrub in the basin. But Dean still tried to clean it, clean it like Sam was in the water, gory and wounded, not the shirt.

"Dean."

The image of a rumpled trench coat over a suit that didn't fare much better stared at him from the mirrored glass.

Dean turned so fast it felt like he had broken his neck. "Damnit, Cas, I told you not to leave him alone!"

Castiel looked as wrinkled as his clothing. He had grown a beard since the three weeks that Dean had seen him last. "Sam is unconscious Dean, and the room is free of any demonic activity-"

Sam's blood soaked shirt fell from Dean's hand and back into the red water as he shoved past the angel and into the other room.

"-I estimated it was safe to leave your brother's proximity in order to talk to you."

The motel was right off of Bourbon Street, the kind that was rented by the hour. A wooden bladed ceiling fan whirred clouds of dust in the air.

There was a comforter on a queen sized bed, a gaudy red and orange striped thing that looked like it hadn't seen a washing machine since it had been manufactured.

Sam lay on that comforter. He was still, ashen, blood dotting the white undershirt that remained on him with his jeans.

There was a unpainted plywood night stand beside the bed with a glass ringed at the top with a dried red lipstick stain. The hotel wasn't the kind that gave complimentary towels or mints on the pillows. Instead a plastic wrapped roll of two ply paper towels sat in a cubby on the night stand.

Dean pulled a silver flask from his jacket pocket filled with Holy Water, he poured this into the glass until it was a third of the way full. He then ripped into the paper towels, tearing off three sheets and dipping the end into the glass.

He reached for Sam's arm, the one that Sam had held paper with the incantation and wiped at his skin.

"There is no need to do that Dean," Castiel stepped completely into the room, footsteps quiet even on the hard painted concrete floor. "Sam has no visible wounds, and the blood you are cleaning, is human."

The paper towel in Dean's hand came back tinged with dots of red. "Sam's been through enough today, I'm not letting him wake up bloody." Dean re-dipped the paper towel continued wiping, his voice eerily calm, but it was a forced calm.

"Even a demon as high ranking as Baal wouldn't be able to infect your brother through dermal contact," Cas's voice was monotone at best, but not unconcerned. "Sam has taken on the host of Lucifer; he has drunk gallons of demons like this. He is no worse off than he was then-"

Dean jumped up like lightning had struck where he had been sitting. He over turned the nightstand with such force that it smashed into splinters.

"_You call this no worse?!" _He stood and faced Cas like an opposition. "That human blood was a _friend!" _He pointed a finger in hostility at the angel. "And piece by piece these they are taking away Sam away from me!" Dean stepped over to Cas, his boots breaking the splintered pieces of the nightstand. "I am watching my little brother _die_, and there's nothing I can do about it – _This is a fuck load of worse!" _

Dean had been a big brother for 30 years. He had always cared for Sam, had always worried about him. But 9-years-ago he and Sam teamed up as Hunters and he learned to stow that expression from outsiders, because weakness such as that could and _would_ get you killed.

But it leaked out of him now, in a burst of rage that left him tearing at his head like he wanted to cleave it in half and choked a molten of tears down his eyes.

Cas watched this, half stunned. Something that had seen a millennia of life, shocked into silence.

"_Dean,"_

Sam was bracing himself up on his arms, his gaze sweeping around the room wildly, trying to focus on a place he didn't remember going to.

Dean almost ran back to the bed. He dropped low and tackled Sam into a hug. "Goddamnit-" the words were muffled into Sam's shirt.

Sam's arms hung loose by his brother's body, his expression confused. "Dean?-" he tried again.

"_Goddamnit!"_ Dean said the exact same line, but the emphasis was much stronger.

Dean pulled back surveying every inch of Sam's face. "You okay?"

"Yeah," Sam's voice was raw, half drained. There were flashes of light that danced in front of his vision, remnants of that bright light that had engulfed him earlier. It created a pinpricking of pain that danced painfully up his eyes, but it wasn't an unbearable kind of pain.

So he wasn't focused on that. It was Dean's face, the not even hidden rawness of his older brother's expression, that he looked at."Man, are _you_ okay?"

Dean's expression started to evaporate back into the place where he stored things once there was no longer an immediate threat. "You're up talking and-" he paused and analyzed Sam like a doctor. "Can you walk?"

"I think so," Sam said honestly; he hadn't exactly tried yet.

Dean slapped his brother's leg. "Talking and walking." He gave Sam a half hearted smile. I'm awesome."

"Dean," Sam shifted so that he was sitting up completely on the bed. "Where _are _we?"

"The Place D'Arms," Castiel answered, naming the historic hotel that dated back to the 1800's. He looked at the loud colors and peeling, stained paint of the room, like he remembered what it had looked like in its prime. "Or it used to be before some local merchants in the area sanctioned this part of it for a subcompact pleasure district-which is a shame, because it saw enough action without the sanction-"

"Cas," Sam looked surprised, because he hadn't seen the angel up until that moment.

Cas stopped his surveying of the room and looked down at the younger man. "Hello Sam."

"Did you_ bring_ us here?" Sam's question was baffled.

"You killed a First Legion Original Demon Sam. That kind of thing creates a supernatural echo- When I found you-" Cas paused in that abrupt manner that was not awkward because of what he was. "-Dean begged me to bring you here," Cas looked over at Dean like they had already had this conversation. "I figured I owed that much since there was nothing else I could do for you-"

"What about Naomi?" Sam insisted. "I thought using your angel mojo put a supernatural tracker on you."

"It does," Cas said in return. "I siphoned the Grace off another angel to move you. As you say, it will take her a minute to catch up."

"You stole a frat buddy's go juice before a Stargate Jump?" Dean said. "What are you _stupid?"_

Castiel turned hard eyes on Dean. "As stupid as you are for letting Sam kill that Hellhound and starting these Trials; it is on that level-"

"Hey!" Sam barked, his voice booming with a protective growl. "Your superiors on Mt. Sinai created these Trials; so how about you dial down the blame?" Sam swung his legs up over the bed, and stood up like an old man with arthritis. He shot a bit of a glare, but didn't reject the hand that Dean grabbed out to him to pull him on his feet.

"Tamara said this place was on Royal Street." Sam looked over at the half closed dusty blinds to the sun that had almost completely gone down on the western horizon; the buildings of the French Quarter outlined in a glow of red and pinks beneath a heavy blue. "We need to move on it when it gets dark. Where's my shirt?" The last remark was directed at Dean.

"It's garbage," Dean remarked. "I'll grab you a new one." He walked in the bathroom.

"I am sorry about your friend, Sam," Cas said once he and Sam were alone. "These days, there don't seem to be enough of them left."

Castiel had always been Dean's friend. Sam was just the younger brother of that ratio. Their conversations were decent, but they didn't share secrets and dreams.

"Thanks," Sam said finally.

Dean came back into the room with a bundled brown and blue checkered button up. "Here," he tossed the shirt at Sam. "It's Hotte Couture."

Sam caught the shirt and buttoned it on without a returning remark.

Dean watched him for a moment, like had done when Sam was 4 and just learning how to fully dress himself without supervision. "There's a cemetery right around here right?"

"Yeah," Sam's words were flat. "The _St. Louis_, it's up on Basin Street."

"Okay," Dean said in return. "Mr. Fantastic there, flashed Baby in the parking lot. We'll wait until the sun's down completely."

"You can't open the gates until twelve o'clock," Cas interrupted.

His declaration sent both Sam and Dean's gazes towards him, like students who had just been bombarded by their teacher with a fact that wasn't on the pages on their history book.

"The Gates of Hell can only be opened at Midnight. It is a slivered section where both night and day do not exist," Cas looked to both of them "Between 12:00 and 12:01 there is nothing; no binds, no locks of any kind. If the gates are truly here, that is when you must walk through Sam."

Sam had fallen into Hell, through a portal created by the rings of the Four Horseman. He remembered the utter blackness of it, falling for a full day, until he landed on a cold blackness. But, _walking_ into Hell, descending into it without a free fall, it was a different thing entirely. "Alright, I'll wait then," he looked over at Dean, and they shared the same look. "But there's something we gotta do first."

"No." Cas said in his firm, graveled voice. "I was able to track you through the energy the Demon Amy exuded when you killed her. Her Legion will do the same thing," Cas glanced over at the windows where there were sigils painted on them in Day glo orange spray paint, wards against demons. "They will be on you the minute you step out of this room!"

"Sam's ganked Slut No 2 back there Cas," Dean said. "It gave him cloaking powers against demons that don't have the penthouse view-"

"But you don't have that advantage Dean," Cas returned. "After what happened in that bar, they won't expect you to be without Sam- you will both stay here until it is time to unlock the gates."

"_No_," Sam said "We're _not!"_ He looked Cas full on in the face, turning it into a disbelief of a laugh. "Are you ever going to _get_ it Cas? I'm not slamming the gates shut for you, or those demons – I'm doing it for _us_, for _people._ And Tamara was one of the best people I knew. And she deserves her last rites," Sam turned to walk towards the bathroom.

And was met with an iron grip on his forearm. Cas was standing there his fingers gripping like a clamp on iron.

"Cas!" Dean's voice interjected.

Sam didn't cry out, but his face contorted into a grimace.

Cas kept his grip firm. "This is the Eleventh Hour, Sam!-we cannot deviate!"

Castiel was a celestial being, so he had an innate sense when there was something amiss, something that was wrong.

He had that feeling a moment before he felt something he never had before, Dean pressing the tip of the angel blade against his trench coat.

"We've been square for a while man," Dean's voice was iron nails. "But you take your hand off my brother or its going pear shaped real fast-"

Cas could have easily smited Dean, or Sam, he was not out numbered. But he was not vengeful, he had been like that before. Driven to an end despite the means to get there. And it had all started with a moment like this.

Cas released Sam's arm, and Sam immediately gripped in pain.

"I'm-" Cas looked over at Sam, panting, the vice grip on his arm hadn't broken any bones, but an angels' grip was not a hand shake. He looked over at Dean, the expression on his face could only be described one way. _'feral'._ "I'm sorry-"

There was a heavy wind in the air, an echoing noise that sounded like the beat of wings within the stone confinement of a bell tower.

And Cas was gone.


	9. Evening

**xxxxXxxxx**

**Chapter Eight- "Evening"**

"_They sent forth men to battle, But no such men return; And home, to claim their welcome, Come ashes in an urn."_  
~ Aeschylus, _Agamemnon_

**xxxxXxxxx**

_St. Louis_ Cemetery was a sprawling mass of granite and marble. All historical books published about the location would include a paragraph about how it was one of the oldest cemeteries in New Orleans, dating back to 1789. It was so massive that it had been divided into subsections that ranged in numbers from 1-4.

The sun had gone down softly over the headstones of angels and marbled rooftops, and night had fully claimed the sky in a spray of clear stars that came with Spring.

There was copse of trees, in _St. Louis #1_, a section of greenery that served as a boundary between the city for the living, and the one for the dead.

The Impala was parked here, behind an oak tree that was older than itself. On its passenger side stood an erected teepee of logs, a funeral pyre.

Dean aligned the logs that made up the flat base. The sound of the Impala trunk closing made him raise his head.

Sam walked towards him carrying Tamara's body wrapped in a white sheet from the hotel.

Dean moved aside as Sam laid her carefully down on the logs. He held out a cardboard box of rock salt to Sam without a word.

Sam took it and shook the crystal white pellets all along the body, while Dean doused the sheet with sprays of gasoline from a small metal canister.

Eventually both of their containers reached the bottom and they set them to the grass. Dean removed his etched silver Zippo lighter. He clicked the flint and an orange flame burst from the end.

"I'm going to finish this Tamara," Sam looked at the shroud covering her head. "That's a promise."

"See you in the next life sweetheart," Dean lit the wood and the flame quickly ignited the gasoline.

They both stepped back as the fire grew larger, watching it engulf the white sheet until it was consumed by orange.

"You know, this never gets any easier," Dean's voice was a quiet noise of the night.

"I know," Sam's voice was just as quiet. He turned his face to his brother.

"How's your arm?" Dean threw out, a sudden subject change. But, Dean needed to have something to discuss that was living.

"It's okay," Sam didn't take his eyes off the fire, watching a friend get the end she deserved, but decades too early. Finally the time for staring at the flames came to an end and Sam turned: "We can't miss this time Dean."

"I hear you," Dean returned.

The flame illuminated their faces in shadow. So Sam couldn't really find Dean's eyes, but somehow he still knew where to look. "If this goes sideways-"

"No," Dean interrupted, turning away from their friends burning body to meet Sam's gaze in the dark "We're not doing that last night on earth speech man, okay? We're brothers, the next part of that is just wrong to think about-"

"We're going to close the gates of _hell_ Dean," Sam interrupted his brother. "There's a 90 percent fail rate for something like that-"

"It's not like we haven't had underdog statistics before."

"Dean, enough with the _fucking_ jokes!"

"What are you trying to say, Sam?" Dean cut in to their tennis match of a conversation.

"You didn't sign up for these Trials; " Sam said. "You volunteered" he waved at the dark air between them. "If that 90 percent fills into a 100 percent-"

"I don't regret my decision," Dean interrupted with the quietest of voices, the one right above a whisper. "You want your whole non Eye of the Tiger, non Lord of the Rings, non gay last moment on earth speech? Here it is: You're my _brother_ Sammy. It's been you and me since the start. He-Witches curse or not, that's how the rest of the story goes."

The fire danced shadow's across Sam's face. It eventually separated the darkness from the light, the living flesh from the dead, until only human expression emerged:

"Thank you." Sam said nothing else.

And Dean didn't either.

**xxxxXxxxx**

Royal Street was a landscape of old buildings lit by gas and electric street lights that melted the place into an oil painting at night. It didn't hold the prestige and the popularity as a party district as the other parts of the city, so it was virtually deserted.

There were a few people milling up and down the sidewalks, a lone couple heading to a red Toyota compact parked on the side of the street, and two college aged looking kids, spillage from the noise and binge drinking of the French Quarter Bars. Their drunken noise hit a crescendo, then died as they turned a corner to where a cab stand sat indicated by a sign post next to a flecked green park bench.

Dean never knew where the expression _'armed to the teeth'_ came from. Arms and legs yes, and Sam's hair was long enough to braid throwing stars into it, but there was no usable weapon that could be successfully stored in someone's teeth.

He was armed up the arms and legs with enough knives for any armory, and his pearl handled colt was tucked where it always resided, in the pocket of his jacket. Sam's taller frame and body build allowed him to carry the same amount, plus one additional buck knife and- his gun of choice being his Tarus.

They stepped off the curb from the alleyway where they had parked the car. Dean had found a tarp lying abandoned for some reason on the damp ground and had thrown its black body.

Sam would argue that a black car in the night would be less conspicuous than a canvas colored tarp covered in various stains from the road. But that was an argument reserved for a time when they weren't prepared to find the main access point to hell.

The wetness from the recent rain splashed under their feet as they crossed the street. The red Toyota's lights cut a swath into the night as it pulled its passengers away from the night and mostly likely somewhere warm where a three star hotel would be waiting for them.

"Royal Street," Sam looked up and down the darkness and the windows of the three story buildings that didn't stop at the turns of streets, and instead followed them, and continued down in the new direction. "There's 2 dozen businesses and establishments here-"

"Yeah I know," Dean agreed, giving a glance across the street. A collection of girls in tight, short sequin primary colors glowed like light bulbs waved and smirked at him. One of them made a jerking off motion in the air while licking her lips at Sam.

"It's not much intel to go off of, but Tamara didn't have time to write a book when that bitch slashed her guts all over the floor," Dean's words were fresh and raw from the reality of two hours ago. "Our best bet is to try the churches, demons usually like to go for irony."

"There isn't enough time," Sam argued as they rounded a corner of an old drug store, a mortar and pestle symbol was drawn in faded paint on its front window. "Cas said that we can only enter the gates at midnight-"

"Cas also tried to break your damn arm Sam!" Dean suddenly stopped in the sidewalk, the shadows of their bodies blocked out the streetlight they stopped beside. "He may be a millennium squared years old, but we're the hunters man, we'll find it in time."

"Dean," Sam had set his hand on the bend of Dean's arm, his other hand was pointing to something behind them. "Check it out."

When Dean turned he was now facing the sign post for the cab stand they had passed on the other side of the street. A yellow cab was parked at the curb, it's lights on. Dean opened his mouth to question Sam's 'show and tell' moment, because it was a _cab_ at a _cab_ _stand_. Not exactly ironic. But then he saw that Sam wasn't just pointing at the cab, he was also pointing at the sign above it.

The blue sign with the yellow letters that caught the light of the headlights and reflected the sign's writing:

_No Cab Service after 10:30 PM at this stop._

_Please call *23 for nearest running location._

"His GPS Out?" Dean asked.

"Guess we're finding out." Sam returned.

They walked across the traffic-less street. As they drew closer to the cab, things about it came more into focus. The lit sign face on its roof had no company name. It's yellow paint was chipped at the headlights and at the handles of the doors facing them, like it had seen constant use. It's tires were white walled, but with a white that had a fine tint of yellow mixed into it.

The windows were tinted a dark black, and they were all rolled up. But as they finally came right next to it, the driver's side rolled down. The chorus of _"Highway to Hell"_ spilled out of the cabin.

A dark ebony face peered at them through black tinted aviator glasses. "You boys look lost." The door opened and the man stepped out. For as grungy as his cab appeared the driver was dressed impeccably in a pinstripe charcoal suit one shade lighter of being pure black. A dark red silk tie trailed like a dried bloodstain into the suit, a silver tie clip with a tiny skull sat on it.

"You look a little lost yourself." Dean said already reaching into his pocket for the first knife he could lay his hands on, the serrated bowie.

The man's lips pulled into a quiet smirk. "I'm not lost Dean." He leant back into the cab and clicked off the music, returning the night to silence.

The look Dean and Sam shot each other was the same one they always reserved for when a stranger knew their real names.

The man shut his door "I'm right where I usually am at this hour." His voice was deep, in an accent that was unrecognizable, but inflected enough to raise his voice up and down like waves on the sea. In his hand was a white shop rag.

"Hate to tell you pal, but hookers at this hour have seen the inside of one too many VD clinics." Dean's clinched his hand tighter on his knife. "You'd be better off jacking off inside a public bathroom outflow pipe."

The man smirked again, but he simply walked by Dean and Sam. "The reputation that surrounds you boy;" his shaded eyes found Dean. "It is spot on." He knelt down next to his license tag, and began to wipe it with the rag.

"Who are you?" Sam asked. Like Dean he drew a knife, a buck knife. Neither one of their weapons were supernatural, but they still would hurt.

"You know, you should really let someone answer your question before you draw a weapon on them Sam." He blew off the dust that had collected in a corner of the license tag. "It's just common courtesy."

The tag was white, no state markings. The license reading in red letters:

'_CHA-R 0N'_

"Your Charon-_"_ Sam's voice was disbelief. "The ferryman of Hades-"

The driver finally stood back up and turned around to face them. He buttoned his suit jacket. "Glad to see that your reputation for being the smart one in the relationship is also true-"

"Hades is a _Greek_ myth," Dean said to the suited man, not looking at him like he was a monster, but like he was pure crazy. "This is Bible Belt Country."

"_Hades, Tartarus, The Pit. _Hell is hell Dean._" _The dark glasses turned towards Dean again. "Only humanity names it differently." Charon reached into the breast pocket of his suit and pulled out a pocket watch of antique looking gold. He clicked the watch open, and peered at a face of red numbers_. _ "It's ten minutes to midnight gentleman, unless this little run in has a purpose other than a Q and A, I have my rounds to make," He smiled revealing teeth so white they glowed. "You'd be surprised how many condemned souls I pick up after a New Orleans party night."

"How does this even work?" Sam threw out. "I've seen people get dragged to hell, and it wasn't in the back of a taxi cab."

"Those were special cases," Charon turned his attention to Sam. "Deals made with crossroad demons, jumping straight into Lucifer's Cage, things of that nature. But we can't all be rock stars. Your average scum bag is on my meter; and I have about _30_ to pick up tonight."

Dean drew out his the angel blade. "Plans have changed Latka Graves. You're taking me and him on a VIP trip down to the basement."

Charon eyed the blade like it was an amusing child's toy crafted out of a pie plate and tin foil. "That won't work on me. Neither will anything else you have in your arsenal. I have diplomatic immunity. That's why Crowley hasn't been able to downsize me. I'm as important as Death; Demons aren't the only evil out there. Without someone to ferry the condemned souls to hell – this marble would look solid black from space."

Charon cocked his head, like he was observing them for the first time. "As to you –_request_ – to ride with me. You have to understand that you do not meet the requirements of my normal fares. You both have enough bloody history, that part is true, but you're not _dead-"_

"Alright, you son-of-a-bitch, We're running on a time constraint," Dean cut him off. "If this speech is going to the _Thanks, but screw you pal,"_ phase, how about we skip it and get to the part where we slim jim the _Chariot of Fire _ there and drive off."

"You will not be able to close the gates of hell if you do not _get_ to the gates, you infinitesimal speck." Charon's voice seemed to drop the temperature of the air by five degrees. "Yes, I know all about your preparations -about Sam undertaking the Trials. But rest assured, I will not reveal your plan-"

"Oh and we're just supposed to _believe_ you?" Sam cut in to the ancient ferry man in disbelief.

"I'm Switzerland. I ferry souls to the underworld, I do not meddle in politics. And I do possess the ability to transport _living_ souls to the nether regions-" Charon walked to the back of the cab and opened the door that faced the street. "We are on the same time constraint gentleman, pick your option."

The interior of the cab was lit in shadow from the dim bulb of the dome light above, the carpeting on the floorboards were dark red, the seats an ebony black.

Sam looked at Dean, and Dean looked at Sam. An open cab to a trip to Hell, it wasn't a light decision. But it was the one they had been working on for months, _years_.

"Rock, paper, scissors?" Dean suggested half heartedly.

"No time." Sam said swallowing. Before he could change his mind, or try to talk himself out of it, he was through the door of the cab.

There was a scuffle of awkwardness for Sam to fit his long limbs and tall frame into the cab, Dean as well as he followed his younger brother. There was an arm rest that divided the back seat, and both nearly fell over it as they climbed over the seat. With each shift, the smell of old wet leather wafted upwards.

Finally they were both facing front wards.

Into the eyes of Charon, who was in the driver's seat and was turned to face them. The seats were the long couch like kind. There was a woven seat cover draped over the front. It was made of dark fibers and knobby little connectors. The arm rest had a multi slotted coin slot like a Laundromat washing machine. Carved on the dull looking metal were indicators for coins, _Denari,_ _Pennies, Dollars, Yen, Canadian Dollars. _ There was even a slot for a credit card with the Visa/Mastercard Logo.

A cab meter was visible on the dash made of a dark wood color, reading a triple zero in bright digital red.

"Wow look at that," Dean looked at the coin slots who's surface was smudged opaque with the prints of millions of fingers. "Even Hell doesn't take American Express."

"We have standards boy," Charon said. "But those payments are for the condemned souls of the _dead._ "Those who foolishly deem themselves iron balled enough to take this ride while living, require a different kind of payment." He stroked the back of the seat cover with a long thin hand.

It was then that both Dean and Sam saw the fibers and knobs of the cover were made of gristled hair and human bone, grayed from centuries of age. Spider webbed on these bones were jagged spurs, like thorns.

"Like I said; coins are for the dead. But, dead or living, all pay a standard price. But for the living I must take a piece of their soul this way."

Sam and Dean shared mirrored expressions.

But Charon simply blinked at it, like he had seen millennia of the same stunned looks, and most likely he had. "Relax boys, it is only a piece. There has to be something left for the demons to work over after all. But no one can enter hell with the whole of their humanity in them, or the inquisition would have a _hell_ of a time breaking them." The gleaming white smile grew as large as his dark face.

Dean had the barrel of his Colt aimed point blank at that dark face in a blur of three seconds. "This may not be able to kill you, but I'll find a way to make it hurt like a mother."

"If you don't pay the fare then get out of my cab because you are _wasting _my time," Charon paid no attention to the gun at his face. He reached to pull off his glasses, revealing eyeless sockets, wrinkled around the bones with clinging bits of old red flesh. "You have about two minutes to make up your mind."

Dean lowered his gun, but very, _very_ slowly. He set his hand above the webbing of bone and hair.

Sam had done the same beside him, but his had hovered over it like Dean's, like he was testing out the heat of a flame. "Dean."

Dean's name was quiet, a low voice. One Sam only used when he was seeking permission, when he was seeking an okay. He had originally done this as a little brother; then as a hunter. He was now doing it as both.

Dean gave a silent nod, and both pressed their hands hard into the bone.

Blood began to leak down their palms, and drip into the red carpet, which had not been that color originally. But only a few drops of blood landed onto the crimson carpet. The bone drew in the other drops; absorbing them like a sponge.

The pain from the wounds were sharp, but they were like paper cuts over the hard tugging of feeling like a hand was trying to rip out their lungs up through their ribcage.

This went on for three seconds, five, then it stopped, throwing them both back in a gasp against the seat.

Sam was grabbing at his chest, rubbing hard where it felt like something had been torn out of him.

Beside him, Dean was doing the same, but he stole a glance at his brother. "Sammy, you okay?"

Sam gave a nod, and half a high sign.

The meter in the front changed so that it read _'50.00'_ Charon was now facing the front of the cab, eyeing that meter. "Interesting," For an ancient being to say _'interesting', _ it was a bit unsettling. His thin hands slid his aviator glasses back on his face, and he watched his charges from the rearview mirror. "Enjoy the ride gentleman."

There was a clicking of gears and the cab pulled away from the curb. For a ferry of Hell, he drive of the cab seemed normal. The speed only around 65 miles an hour. Outside, was a different story. From as far as a mile ahead of them, all the traffic lights were red. But the few cars at the crossing intersections of these lights all stopped, waiting, the drivers inside showing no hint that this wasn't a normal thing.

A 6 story concrete parking garage emerged on their left and the Charon drove into it. A toll gate stood at the front, and it raised it stripped barricade up revealing a long sloping ramp that disappeared into darkness. A red octagon sign pointed with a white arrow downward at the ramp.

The cab drove over it, and began to pick up a speed that moved the odometer needle past the _120_ and emerged it back on the other side, back to _0_. It continued to zigzag like this in a furious circle over and over again.

The lighting overhead began to dim, then go out entirely, plunging them into total darkness.

There was no way to tell time, no indicators to see how far they had traveled all Sam could hear was Dean's breathing beside him, harsh pants as he was pressed flat against the back of the seat by gravity.

Finally the cab stopped, an abrupt stop that jerked them both forward into the nettles of human bone.

Dean felt gash open up in his forehead and a trickle of blood leak down his face at the same time he swore.

The dim dome light came back on and the face of Charon was turned back towards them. "This is as far as I take the living."

Tall cypress trees stood outside the windows of the cab, clearly visible even with the dark tint. They cab was parked in the middle of a large field, some sort of park.

"Where are we?" Dean said.

"Your destination," Charon replied, like it was something written on the company script. "What you seek is ahead of you; where the trees are the oldest and furthest apart."

Ahead of them, 20 yards or so, was a stand of more cypress trees, illuminated in the glow of the headlights, so thick that their branches nearly blocked out the night sky.

Dean checked his watch. It was 11:55. They had entered the cab only two minutes ago, but had traveled who knows how far; it was like time did not exist once they were inside Charon's cab. Which made Dean wonder just why the ferryman clung so tight to his damn schedule.

"Why are you doing this?" Sam asked, feeling Charon's eyeless eyes on him even through his glasses, and even in the darkness. "If we bar the gates; you're kind of out of a job."

"You are wasting time second guessing me Sam. This is not an endless supply of free lap dances, I only ferry the living across _once_."

Sam's jaw was locked, stubborn.

"Persistent little thing aren't you?" Charon said in a begrudging voice, like he had to concede talent over to a 2-year-old."Hell is not a compound. There will always be a need for inflow traffic. Now get out-" The door beside Sam sprung open. "I have other fares besides you."

Sam climbed out of the cab; Dean had to take the same door, because when he tried the one next to him it didn't budge. It was like a drainage system, one way in and one way out."

Once they both had their footing on the dry rot and the leaves The passenger side window rolled down:

Charon stared at them from over his seat. "Don't forget your coins boys, you'll need them for next time." The cab drove off into the night, the taillights fading then vanishing altogether like blown out candles.

"Why is everything supernatural a smart mouth?" Dean said.

"I don't know," Sam said, glancing at the glow of his digital watch. "But we've got four minutes."

The grass underfoot was dry and brown, and it cracked under their shoes. A handful of Cicadas cracked their song into the night.

The trees they saw were giants, with sprawling roots shaped like hands grasping the dirt with spread apart fingers. There were several clumped together, almost intertwined. They walked past these, stepping over their roots until they found them. A pair of towering cypress trees that were at least 10 feet taller than the others. The bark on their trunks were a sickly gray both were as thick as a house. They good 30 feet apart from each other like fence posts without their wiring removed.

Sam reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out his flashlight, sweeping the beam onto the nearest tree.

"Dean," Sam's light stopped moving over one section of the trunk.

Dean shown his own light on top of his brother's. There was something carved into the bark, like initials lovers would carve. It was writing, script almost too neat to be carved:

'_Omnem dimittite spem, o vos intrantes.'_

"Abandon all Hope," Sam translated the Latin. "All ye who enter here."

"Kinda makes you wonder," Dean said. "Which came first, Dante or the inscription?"

"Dean," Sam sounded like he wasn't hearing him. He ghosted his hand over the words, like they would burn if he touched them for real. "This is it." His eyes swept over the night. An animal, small, it looked like a rabbit, scurried off into a place where the grass grew taller. "There's a group of trees, over there," he pointed to where he had seen the rabbit emerge from. "You wait there, after I get the key, you make it back to the Gates-"

"I'm not hiding in a patch of shrubbery Sam," Dean told him. "I'm coming with you-"

"No you're not!" Sam said. "I'm cloaked from demons, _you're_ not! They'll rip you apart!" His voice was hushed, even in argument. But, the depths of the words weren't.

"I'm not letting you do this alone Sam!" Dean didn't believe in being quiet like his brother.

"We have _one_ minute," Sam found his voice again, his full voice.

"Then shut up Sam!" Dean yelled, he pulled out the demon killing knife. "I'm coming."

Sam had set the timer on his watch to beep at 12:00, and the high pitched noise broke in through the still heat of the night air.

Sam's watch was digital, but ran the seconds beside the time, and it had stopped on _'00'_.

The noise of the cicadas, the few birds that flew at night, the wind, their sound had stopped completely.

The air between the two trees began to shimmer like a mirage. Bits of molten orange and red waved in mid air like embers blowing free from a fire. They could feel air, warm, almost hot being drawn _in_ like a vortex.

In the orange glow cast from the fiery dancing color, both brothers found themselves meeting each other's eyes.

Before they stepped abreast through the trees, and vanished from the night.


	10. Midnight

**xxxxXxxx**

**Chapter Nine –"Midnight"**

"_Into the eternal darkness, into fire and into ice."_

~Dante; Divine Comedy

**xxxxXxxxx**

The thing at Dean's throat tried to kill him the moment he was through the veil. It was massive, and ugly. A huge dog, a hellhound, it's teeth barred, hackles raised like dry grass along it's back.

Dean was thrown onto his back, onto something that had the yielding power of concrete.

Razor sharp jaws were millimeters away from his jugular, dripping drool down his neck, and in his mouth.

He would have spit in disgust, if he had time from trying to avoid being torn to shreds. He was too tightly pinned to reach the knife clutched in his hand.

"_Dean!"_ Sam was above him, the angel blade came down on the dog's back, going straight down to the hilt.

The dog yowled a dying cry and turned to Sam with feral red eyes, it lunged with the last of its reserves before Sam could dig the knife out of its flesh, slamming him into the wall as it turned.

The dog then backed up a few feet, and made a real lunge, it's bark a thunderstorm.

Dean lopped the dog's head off mid lunge and the creature dropped in a splash of black gore, it's head bouncing once off the surface of the ground and rolled underneath it's body.

They were standing in a narrow hallway made of gray stone, like a medieval castle. Torches burned red in holders along both sides of the wall. Dean pushed his back along the brick, slick with a damp slime. He knelt down and pulled the blade out of the Hellhound caracas, and it came with a squelch of hair and clinging flesh.

Dean held out the blade to Sam. "You okay?"

"Yeah," Sam took the knife from him, panting. He wiped the hellhound blood off the handle on his shirt.

Dean grabbed Sam by the elbow "Come on!" he pushed his brother the rest of the way up and their feet thudded with heavy echoes on the stone.

Sam finally found his footing. But the hallway continued. It widened to the size of a church apse. There began to be an echo, voices rasping and a vibrato of chains.

Barred cells sprung up along each wall, and like a checkerboard in was divided from the cells into empty spaces where people were chained spread eagle by iron manacles on their arms and legs.

These only barely resembled people, skeletons with skin, covered in bright red, or with their viscera hanging out open like the filthy strings of deflated balloons.

"_Please Sirs_," the voice of a woman shrieked out to them, small, half her face caved in, revealing a withered, bleeding brain matter. Whatever clothing she had had long worn away to gray and filth. "_I didn't do it! I was set upon by bandits on my way to the Feast Day!" _The way she spoke was not modern. She had been chained here centuries ago. Her mouth was decay and black blood; she rattled in her chains furiously._ "They murdered my escorts, not me! Please, you must let me out!"_

"_That bitch deserved to die,"_ The voice came from a cell adjacent to the woman. A man with the flesh torn to shreds on his bicep emerged from the blackness of his cell. His hands hung out the bars, the nails long and black. A head with wisps of filthy matted hair. _"Fucking bitch, I'm glad I strung her up!"_ He grabbed a hold of Sam's shirt as he passed, throwing him into the bars of his cell. "_You hear me, I'm glad!"_

Sam pulled out the angel blade and the man recoiled. He let go of Sam and retreated to the back of his cell, a decaying stink emerging from each bare foot fall. His eyes were dark brown, barely visible in the torchlight, but in another moment, they slid to black. _"I'll be one of you soon enough boss,"_ He smiled with broken shrapnel pieces of teeth. _"You'll let me out of here; tomorrow. I'm ready-"_

Sam pulled away as the man continued to chant _"I'm ready"_ in a vibrating monotone.

As the figure became blackness again, Dean felt the ghost grip of a barbed whip in his hand, the echoing cries of the endless souls strung up one after another, after another. He was staring at himself, what he had been on this side.

"Dean," Sam didn't know what had happened exactly, but he sensed it, some kind of shifting in his ribs, right where he had felt the pain after submitting his blood in the cab. It felt like a _blackness_, a loss of anything but the will for punishment.

"_Hey!"_ Sam grabbed his brother and shook him. _"That's not you!"_ As easily as Sam didn't understand what had happened to his brother a moment ago, he suddenly did. _"Dean, look at me!"_

Sam was gripping Dean's face, shaking and yelling into it. Dean's eyes looked dull, gleaming, clouding over like a horrendous thunderstorm. Like he wanted to open one of the cages and flay things for the sheer joy of it.

"_DEAN!"_ Sam shouted and it reverberated all along the cells, and the occupants down endless hallway cried out: '_Dean! Dean!'_ like demented parrots.

"_I need you!" _ Sam shook his older brother's head again. _"You promised!"_

The cloud slid past Dean's eyes, his hazel eyes came back, dull in the torchlight, but his. "Sammy?!" It wasn't a docile question, it was hostile and protective. "What the fuck?"

"We need to find the end of this damn thing," Sam said in answer. He grabbed his brother's arm."_Now!"_

They moved past the man in the cell, his eyes remained black, watching them.

Torch lights blurred past them like the traffic lights stuck on red they had passed in the taxi cab. It cast its light on the walls like the stones themselves were bleeding.

The hallway kept going, what looked like miles, in a straight parallel. Every cage and rack they passed was a portrait of macabre. Frail things rattling fiercely in chains, both begging them for release and cursing them in equal breath. Others were unrecognizable as human nothing but red splatters and bone, wailing non syllables that reverberated down the hallway.

They had both caught a whiff of the night air of the dry leaves and forest rot when they first had stepped into hell. But, the further down they went from that entrance air became hotter, not burning, but stale, stagnant, blood and fester replacing any indication of the world above.

And also, the further down that endless redness they traveled, colors began to fade. On their clothes, their hair their skin, even their eyes began to gray, like something had pierced their pupils like balloons and the pigment was slowly leaking away.

But then, one of them would nudge the other from a gruesome sight of a serial killer braiding his own entrails, or a woman rocking what looked like a half born fetus slick with afterbirth blood, who hummed a broken little sing song tune. And they would feel each other's contact like an electric jolt, and remembered their breaths, and their hearts that slammed against their ribcage.

This hallway finally turned into a corner that turned sharply right.

The light here was still an eerie red, but it seemed somewhat brighter, the clarity of the slime and the desiccated looking bricks coming into focus.

It was like they had been underwater, and now climbed waterlogged to the shore. However long they had walked down that hallway (neither one of them could really discern the time table) their weapons had not been drawn.

But now, as sure and as quick as blinking the knives came out, their metal glinted like rubies against the crimson light.

"Dean," Sam found himself panting like he had run that entire time.

Dean also found himself mimicking his brother. "Current location aside, what the _hell-"_

"I don't know man," Sam answered. He looked down the long hallway in front of him. It was almost identical to the one they had just left, but after such a deafening wail of torture and pain, there was not a sound to be heard. And the absence of sound was like a sound in itself.

"It's like I was being drained," Dean's eyes looked left and right, even though he had just passed left, and right was the only option. But his hunters reflexes were in over drive, because this was _fucking hell._

"Yeah me too," Sam admitted. "I don't remember that, from before," he broke off because he wasn't exactly talking about his summer vacation away. "You?"

"No," Dean said. He wasn't sarcastic or smart mouthed about it, it was only brutal honesty."But, neither one of us walked through the front door on our last tours."

The sound of footfalls came towards them. There were no gaps in the walls for them to duck behind, so they retreated back around the corner, and flattened themselves against the stone.

The steps drew closer, splashing on the wetness that dripped to the floor from the vault like ceiling above. A bald man suited all in red walked by like a sentry, a barbed iron weapon in his hand.

Dean waited until the man was only a handful of steps from him before he sprang. The demon fought well, like a _demon_, screaming and throwing the iron weapon at Dean's head. He ducked just in time to avoid decapitation.

In the corner of his eye, he could not see his brother. But it was something he did not have time enough to process before the demon had him pinned down to the ground.

The face above was a human man, but then it shifted into something gray with clotted eyeball. The hand holding its weapon drew fast like a storm.

The head of the weapon was shaped like an axe; Dean managed to head butt the demon with it. The face shifted, and an eyeless falcon head with blood soaked feathers screeched at him, and snapped at his throat with a razor sharp hooked beak.

Dean plunged the sharp end of the weapon into its neck, and it cried again, but a dying cry, before it dropped. He yanked the iron weapon from its neck, and hot black blood sprayed out like a fountain.

The weapon was too big to stow away, so Dean sheathed his knife, and kept it out. "Sam?" Shadows danced ghastly in front of him, coming from somewhere he didn't know, because there was nothing to cast them. But his brother wasn't there.

"_Sam?"_ Dean moved away from the dead demon, and turned back down the corner of the hallway they had just left.

The woman with the still born was reaching through the bars of her cell. The baby sat bundled in a blanket against a shadowed corner.

Sam lay against the bars of her cell, his eyes at half mast, the angel blade, gripped in a lack hand.

A gray arm was across his shoulders._"Hush little baby, don't say a word, mama's gonna buy you mocking bird…" _ Her voice was sing song. Her free hand was bloody and carded desiccated fingers through his hair; and her words died into a broken hum.

She raised dull gray eyes up when she heard Dean approach, the arm across Sam's shoulders drew him tighter. Her eyes became manic: "_Shhh, he's sleeping-"_

Dean yanked the blade from Sam's hand and cut through the woman's wrists, slicing her hand off. First one, then the other.

She wailed and shrank into her cell, screaming at the raised stumps where her hands had been.

Her hands were still attached to Sam's body, Dean had to pry them off. They dropped to the ground, fingers curling like wilted flower petals.

"Sam!" Dean slapped Sam's face. He jerked from the contact, but didn't rouse.

"_God will punish you!"_ The woman raised her head up, her long brown hair in disarray, hanging wildly around her face. She beat the iron bars of her cell with handless stumps. "_God will punish you boy!"_

Dean grabbed the blade and lifted Sam's limp form over his shoulder in a fireman's carry.

The woman's cries turned into warbled sobs. She shrank back into her cell and picked up the dead baby bundled in blankets. She starts to rock the bundle again, repeating a litany of _"it's okay, it's okay."_ to the tiny thing.

Dean brought Sam back around the corner. He propped him up against the stone wall. "Sam-" he slapped at his brother's face again.

This time Sam jerked, eyes wide, and tried to struggle away.

"Whoa, whoa, Sammy it's me!" Dean backed up some to give Sam air, but did not let go of him, because he wasn't sure of how stable Sam's balance was.

One of Sam's hands stopped struggling and landed hard on Dean's jacket; his eyes retracted and he shook himself out of his stupor. "Dean-"

"Dude you've _got_ stop doing that!" Dean's voice isn't irritated, it's scared. He moved his hand up to Sam's collar bone and gripped it tightly. "You with me now?"

"Yeah," Sam breathes out "Back there-" He turned his head towards the hallway where the faint strands of the woman's lullaby can still be heard. "-I'm okay." He turned back to Dean, gulping mouthfuls of hot air.

Dean still gripped Sam's collarbone. He felt what he gave above, that pinprick lost in Charon's cab. But he felt Sam breathing under his hand, and it was stronger. "I ganked that mother at your feet and I don't like how quiet the alarm bells have been since we got here. We've got to move-"

"Too late."

A decidedly British accent in the bowels of Hell would not normally seem as a terrifying thing; neither would a tailored Armani suit.

But the combination of both standing at the visual middle of the hallway – it was in a different league.

"Hate to interrupt your little lover's tête-à-tête," Crowley made no move towards them, but his voice reached their ears like he stood in front of them. He stared at the body of the dead demon in front of him. "But I consider it bad form to break into my home and kill my dog and its walker without so much as a how do you do beforehand."

Crowley waved his arm and Dean was sent flying back from Sam and into the opposite wall. He hit the stone hard, the breath being knocked out of him.

Sam made a move towards a weapon in his jacket. But he bowie knife was sent clattering to the floor as he was slammed hard against the wall behind him. He was raised a good three feet into the air.

Dean met the same fate beside him.

Crowley craned his head to something coming down the other hallway. A hint of a smile ghosted the face of the literary agent he had refused to give up possessing. "Perfect timing darling. Please frisk the Winchesters for weapons before we retire to my office."

The sound of heavy boots came from behind Sam and Dean. The slim blonde woman with the dead eyes stepped around to stand in front of them.

Baal eyed them like game that had escaped her grasp. "My pleasure."

**xxxxXxxxx**

Sam was shoved into Dean by an invisible force through an dark stained doorway.

The room they emerged into was a study in brown leather and floor to ceiling bookshelves. A fireplace 5 feet tall, and longer in width, burned hotly from orange flame. Even though they were in hell, the room was climate controlled, almost like someone had set an air conditioner.

Crowley stood behind a massive desk that sat in front of this fire place. "Gentlemen," his voice was almost like a hospitable host. "Take a seat," he gestured to two black leather chairs in front of his desk.

Neither Sam nor Dean made a move to sit in the chairs. Both were scanning the room, surveying, cataloging.

"This room is sealed," Crowley said, seeming to read their minds. "No one leaves unless I let them. Please." he held out his hand and the two round back chairs slid over the floor and knocked them both backwards into their cushions.

Once in the chairs, Sam and Dean found themselves unable to move _out_ of them, like a seat belt had been padlocked around their waists.

A gruesome carving of a hellhound in black wood sat on a huge desk of mahogany. Several high ball glasses sat cluttered on a silver tray beside the figure. Crowley picked up one of the cups and held it over the statue's open mouth.

"Fancy a drink?" The heady smell of a dark liquor poured out. "My private stock. Been curing down here since the Spanish Inquisition-"

"How about you just cut the crap?" Dean snapped. "We're not in the mood for shitty parlor games."

Crowley looked over at him like he had committed a faus paux on decorum. "Suit yourself," he took a heavy drink from his glass. "I was trying to start us off as gentlemen," He another glass under the ebony hellhound decanter. This time the drink that came out was dark crimson red.

Crowley held that glass out and Baal walked towards him. "But since you've opted to your normal low brow ghetto, let's just get on with it then shall we?" He handed Baal the glass.

Baal took the glass of blood and lifted an arm from behind her back. She was holding all of Sam and Dean's weapons in one hand like they were nothing but a handful of toothpicks. She dropped them all down on Crowley's desk with an ear splitting clatter.

Crowley surveyed the cluttered armory, his eyes on Baal. "You did a thorough strip search?"

"Very through Sir," Baal's shorn blonde hair flipped as she swung her head towards the chairs. "Twice for that one," She eyed Sam with a slow pulled smile and drank a long hit from her glass.

Crowley picked up the curved ax headed iron weapon that Dean had gotten off the demon he gutted. It had a handle like an axe blade; leather straps studded with iron spikes hung off it. "Someone like it rough I see. My money's on Sam; he looks like a bit of a dominant." Crowley slapped the flat of the blade in his hand and walked around to the front of his desk. "Though I question, why the gate crash? I would've carved your invitations into your viscera and brought you to the party myself." He leant on the edge of his desk.

"You mean you didn't get the memo?" Dean's voice was cocky, even tied to a chair, facing the King of Hell. "Wow, you really are just a figure head aren't you?"

There was a blur of movement so fast it would have to be slowed down into over a hundred increments to see it in its entirety. At the end of it Baal had the demon weapon pinned, chest level, at Dean.

"I don't recall him asking you, " Baal's voice was the deep, scratched tone; her true voice. She traced the blade across the fabric of his shirt. "You're just a pathetic little boy-"

"And you're a dirty scank," Sam countered. "So how about we put away the fingers?"

Baal had no pupils, but her eyes shifted downward in pure rage when her head whipped to him. She raised the blade level with Dean's heart.

"Ladies," Crowley cut in before Baal could execute her maneuver. "Let's untwist our knickers and get back to the million dollar question- What are the Winchesters doing in my house?" Crowley stood up from the edge of the desk and stood in front of Baal with a pointed finger. "No lap dances, I need him alive to answer my question."

Baal turned her black eyes towards Crowley. Even with her lack of pupils or _eyes_, rage pulled there. She pulled off Dean like a lover she had been straddling: "I am _days_ younger then Lucifer, Crowley. I helped him build Hell. I am not your bitch. You may call yourself king; but the ameba is right, you'll never be our true master."

"Yes, well unfortunately your true master is locked away in the sub basement." Crowley took a drink of his whiskey. "This is _my _hell love. You don't like it, you can join him."

Baal's eyes slammed shut in rage. A crack erupted from the dark stained wooden floor and traveled up the wall like a climbing snake. Leather bound copies of Dante's Inferno_,_ the Communist Manifesto  and a hard cover of Breaking Dawn were sent falling to the floor. An obsidian crystal chandelier with gargoyle bulb heads tilted on its chain above Crowley's head, then crashed onto his desk, spraying the room with crystal dust.

Baal opened her eyes; she stepped over a crack in the floor, which glowed dark red with hellfire, and wafted up an echoing of screaming.

She stood inches away from Crowley. "This isn't over-" She gave a mock courtly bow. "_Your Majesty."_ The body she rode evaporated into thick black smoke and it billowed down through the crack in the floor.

"Someone obviously forgot their Midol this morning," Crowley snapped his fingers and his office repaired itself to how it was before, no cracks, no broken light fixtures. Just a completely intact nightmare. He picked up his glass, and threw out a broken glass shard that had fallen inside it before he finished his drink.

"Now that it's just the boys, how about you tell me what you're doing here before I slit your throats and bare them in front of my dogs."

"How about you go screw yourself first," Sam barked out.

"I love it when you get angry Sam, it makes my trousers damp." Crowley set down his glass and walked in front of Sam. "Suffice it to say, you Winchesters are a stoic lot. That's why I prepared an incentive; your little Prophet, the nerdy little Asian, and that mop top google eyed stick –one of them is down here tucked away – the one who can read the scribbles. The other – is all over his boat. And I heard he was a screamer."

"You son-of-a-bitch," Dean growled.

"You're lying-" Sam's voice chased his brother's.

"Am I?" Crowley returned in a calm voice. "You two came down here on a romantic pact to walk through the fire together; but they didn't. There aren't many associates of the Winchesters left with a pulse. But trust me my lads will find them all, and I will add them to my Green Mile if you don't tell me what it is I need to know."

Crowley's jaw tightened when neither Sam nor Dean talked. "Stubborn little pricks."

A slow smile crept on the King of Hell's mouth, much in the same way a rattle snake would uncoil itself when it was about to strike. "We're not topside mate. I am at full power here. Annoying little fact that allows me to better exploit the little maggots with big mouths that end up with me. But it's been a while since I've had trophies such as yourselves, I might be a bit rusty-"

Sam suddenly lurched backwards in his chair and cried out, the veins in his neck taught, his eyes slammed shut. It felt like something was clawing into his skull.

"Sorry did I say rusty?" Crowley's face was on Dean who was wide eyed and angry. "I meant over-zealous."

Sam jerked so hard the chair scooted back an inch. The veins on his arms and neck were like ropes.

**[**_"We signed up to close the Gates!-" _**]**

The pain was insurmountable. It felt like something was poking a finger into each of the wrinkles of his brain, trying to work things out of the crevices with a hooked fingernail. Sam banged his head against the back of the chair. Blood spurted out of his nose.

"Sam! Let him go you son-of-a-bitch!" Dean tried to force himself out of the chair, tried so hard he felt his shoulder almost slide out of its socket.

**[**_…she hid the key in the deepest part of hell, where no one would be able to find it, and live to use it."_

"_The key, it's inside Lucifer's Cage-"_**]**

The pain suddenly stopped like a faucet being cut off. Sam's head banged one last time against the chair back then his head flopped forward, and it didn't' raise up.

"Sammy-" Dean stopped caring that Crowley stood there, able to get off on this pain, or kill them. He just saw his brother: "Hey! Damnit answer me!"

Every nerve in Sam's body felt raw and exposed; but forced his head to raise. Blood painted a thick trail down from his nose to his chin.

"Left out a few juicy dets Moose?" Crowley's face swam in front of him. "You plan to close the Gates of Hell – even made yourself a fancy tribute to do it?__The things you kids do to get your kicks these days-"

"_ ."_ Sam spat. His voice was strained, but his eyes were level with the demon's.

"Not right now darling, you look a little spent." Crowley stood back. "Well this presents a problem-" He walked in front of both chairs like he was addressing a group of constituents.

Dean eyed Sam critically. The blood had begun to drip onto his lap. His eyes were pained, almost glazed over. But despite that they weren't wavering. Dean felt a wave of pride at his little brother.

"I'm rather attached to the free range access we have to your little world," Crowley snapped his fingers and the high ball glass vanished from his hand, and returned to the silver tray, clean. "But I'm also a realist like Jean Francis Millet – who as an aside, was my first Cross Roads deal when I was a wee demon lad. Little shit couldn't paint clouds before he made out with me-"

"Is there a point to all this?" Sam spat, literally this time, a dollop of red blood that had pooled into his mouth landed on the Persian rug depicting a woven scene of hell from Dante'sInferno

"Like to plow right in there don't you Sam? No mystery why Dean's so bowlegged." Crowley said. The demon looked almost disappointed when Sam didn't take the bait. He snapped his fingers again and the invisible binding that held Sam to his chair fell away.

After having been restrained in the chair for so long, and after the beating his mind had taken, the sudden release made Sam take a head dive towards the floor.

"Here's your chance to go find the keys to the front door," Crowley watched Sam stumble to his feet in amusement. "Don't worry you stupid giraffe," Crowley said to the look on Sam's face. "I haven't grown a heart. The key is in the Cage with Lucifer; your BDSM mate for 180 years. Getting it out won't be a quickie. He'll enjoy it, your reunion, right before he kills you. But if you need further proof that I haven't grown a dickless pair of angel wings, I'm keeping your misses here. Even if you managed to get that little trinket away from Satan's lock box, you won't leave without him; then I'll get to perform a little BDSM of my own-"

"_Shut up!"_ Dean's voice was fierce, and echoed almost as loudly as Baal's. He glanced over at Sam. "Sam, go-"

"Dean-" Sam looked from Dean to Crowley he had ripped his arm off and had asked him to leave it behind.

"Listen to big brother Moose," Crowley returned like it was casual Sunday dinner time conversation. "It's time for your class reunion." He snapped his fingers and Sam vanished from where he was standing.

Dean stared at the spot his brother had just stood at, like he would reappear.

"Sam!"


	11. The Cage

**xxxxxXxxxx**

**Chapter Ten –"The Cage"**

"_What holds the devil; let it hold him well. He will hardly be caught a second time."_

Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe; Faust

**xxxxxXxxxx**

Disorientation settled on Sam like an old unwanted winter coat; his ears buzzed like was caught in the center of a huge tornado. When it all stopped, Sam was standing at the top of a huge free standing staircase of narrow steps that plunged almost ninety degrees straight down.

Far below was a huge octagon pit of black sand boarded by high crumbling walls of stone. Dozens of racks stretched out all along the stone wall. In between these racks were fire so bright that it burned his eyes, and so hot that he could feel their heat from here. Each was filled with a body, spread eagle on them. They screamed as black looming figures tore into them with a mass of weapons on filthy wooden work tables. All the cries rose up at once like a barn full of mistreated beasts.

A hot wind blew past him, and it almost unbalanced him where he stood. There was no handrail, nothing to hold onto. Sam held his arms out like an acrobat on a tight rope and started to walk down the steps.

They were so narrow that he had to walk them at a slant to prevent from slipping. But with each step he took a tumble of rocks broke out under his shoe and fell to the torture below.

Each movement was so precarious that Sam had no other thoughts in his head except walking down. He made it to the halfway point, then the three fourths point, then a stair completely gave way under his boot.

With nothing to hold onto he felt himself pitch head long down the stone. He rolled at a nauseating pace until he landed on hard packed blackness in a mess of blood.

Sam coughed at the sulfuric smell billowing up from the mile high flames. He grabbed a the edge of the staircase and hauled himself to his feet. His hands, were badly scrapped, jeans torn at the knees and bleeding, blood on his face from a gash that had opened up in his cheek. But he walked on step and felt nothing broken, only acutely sore.

In spite of being at the bottom of a pit in Hell, Sam counted his luck. He dug a hand into his jacket pocket for one of his knives before he remembered that he was weaponless. He had landed next to a giant of a rack, almost towering over the mile high flames that blasted beside it.

A man who was taller than him was stretched out a full length on the iron. He begged the demon in front of him in a rapid fire language that Sam couldn't understand. With each flay of the barbed whip the man continue to cry, his voice was pleading. At first the demon took no notice of it. But after an ear splitting crack that tore straight through to bone, the demon suddenly backed off. The chains around the man fell, and the man himself, into a heap on the ground.

He climbed his way to his feet and when he stood back up the demon was holding out the handle of his whip to him. And he took it, and stumbled to the next rack which was only an elbow length away and started to tear into the kid who looked younger than Sam had been when he had first started hunting.

All this time the demon hadn't taken any notice of Sam, had been too busy in his torture. At least that's what Sam assumed. But then the black shift turned, head the shape of a stripped cow skull with long curved horns. The demon stepped away from the rack. It was now under an inch away from Sam's face, and it sniffed, like it could smell him.

Sam stood completely still, hearing a '_tshing'_ noise blowing through the demon's exposed nasal cavities. But then two other demons in human bodies dragged a screaming woman over and lashed her to the empty rack.

The demon turned to the noise and stepped away from Sam like he didn't exist. He picked up a heavy metal mace from a work bench behind him. There was only a brief glance to the small gap on his bench where his whip had been before he turned and began to torture again.

Sam walked straight ahead of him, tucking the black bladed knife he had lifted off the demon's table into his jacket.

The Pit resembled the poorest of city slums. Demons were everywhere, so were the racks. Piles of something rancid smelling was burning in one of the fires that burned in the center of the octagon. A demon with the same skull face was holding a knife as long as Sam's leg over into the same flame. Another carried a wheelbarrow filled with the same rancid substance throwing it into a neighboring fire.

Several that Sam passed glanced up, like they could almost sense his presence, but then returned to their tasks. The cloaking part of the trial had done its job, but Sam wasn't going to loiter. He moved on quickly, keeping to the outskirts of the wall.

The heat rolled sweat down his back like he had been caught in a rainstorm. Sam made no moves to wipe that sweat away even with it started stinging his eyes. He had no idea if a sudden flash of movement might trigger more of a realization of his presence to these demons.

His watch had stopped working, and there were no clocks in hell so he had no real idea of how long he walked, but the distance felt almost like a mile.

The quality of the air suddenly shifted, a breeze of air that was cool hit him on his left side. He turned to see a sliver of an opening in the stone wall, not nearly big enough for him to squeeze through. It was where the air was coming from.

Sam drew the knife from his jacket and stuck the tip of the blade through the gap. When he pulled back the blade remained intact. He touched the metal, and found it cold. He pulled out his hand and tentatively stuck his fingers through, and kept them there for two seconds before jerking back. His fingers came away cold like the knife blade, but they were unhurt.

Sam replaced the knife. The gap looked so narrow that he couldn't afford to have even the smallest amount of extra dimensions. He placed a bracing hand on the wall and pushed himself through the hole.

The gap was a good foot shorter than he was so he to stoop as he squeezed himself through a space that pressed all the breath from his body. It was a narrow space, but it was long, going almost three feet back.

Ahead was an blue tinged light, and when Sam finally emerged into it, he was hit with a sudden rush of cold like he had walked into a freezer.

The walls here were stone too, but hung with ice crystals at the seams of the roof and the floor. The walls formed themselves into a long hallway.

The knife came back out. It was wrapped in a tight cord of leather that cut its indentations into his palm. He walked slowly down the hall. His boots began to crunch in ice, that became thicker the further down the hallway he went.

As the ice got thicker, the air got colder, like a barren land in the depths of winter. His breath puffed out in white clouds in front of him. Finally the hallway stopped and opened into a solarium shaped room, but as big as a over a dozen solariums merged together. The stone underneath gave way to white triangular mosaic tile so old that some of the tiles had become gray.

The blue light shifted, growing sharper. It was coming from a massive black structure that loomed to the left, abutted against a obsidian stone wall. Thick protrusions like stalactites and stalagmites met each other in the center and formed bars.

Sam stopped a foot away from this, the warmth of his shoes doing nothing to melt the ice underneath his feet. The hand that he held the knife in dropped slack at his side as he stared at the enormous cage.

As quickly as the tile started, it ended and became brown dirt surrounded in a thickly outlined circle that continued up where the black bars met the stone wall.

There were symbols scattered around every inch of the ground inside the circle. Sam didn't recognize any of them but one or two of the symbols he had seen used on angel wards.

The ice skipped the circle of dirt, but continued inside, creeping tendrils visible up the bars.

The ice was blue in color, the term _ice blue_ was the only way to describe it. The cage was well over 8 feet wide and taller by a foot. And in the left hand corner something black sat there, cloaked in more darkness. Its shape was hunched like it was staring at something on the ground.

Sam fought a moment of disorientation as he stared at the Cage. Gray flashes of a bone white sickle being slashed down and bright red blood being slashed out jabbed its way into his brain. He grabbed his head and visibly shook it. The memory's faded, but then the reality did not.

He raised the knife out in front of him and crept forward. His feet stepped onto the brown dirt and it yielded like beach sand. When he reached on the edge of the outlined circle it was hard under the heel of his shoe, like stone, and made a quiet crackle of a noise.

The shape in the corner moved, a pair of yellow eyes broke through the black.

The figure stood and emerged through the blackness. It cast no shadow as it hit the blue light. The shape was a man in dirty plaid, filthy brown hair and yellowed eyes.

"Sam." Lucifer walked until he was at the boundary of the Cage. He raised both hands up and grasped the iced bars, a glint of a smile on his face: "Welcome back buddy."

**xxxxXxxxx**

The brandy swirled like an alchemist trick without the aid of any momentum. Crowley bent over the glass and sniffed the aroma of the alcohol. "Sure you don't fancy a drink?" He turned up and looked at Dean who was still sitting in his chair. "This little brew will make you lie back and think of England-"

Dean didn't say a word, his jaw clenched, his eyes were a stare full of anger and hostility.

"Just going to use the silent treatment until my lads haul little brother's clean stripped bones back here?" Crowley took a slow hit from his drink. "Not much of an amusing time-"

"When I get out of the Inviso Chains Crowley, the first thing I'm going to do is cut that smile off your face." Dean spoke each word without blinking. "Nice and slow."

Crowley laughed dryly and took another drink. "The famous wit of the Winchesters, it never stops being ironic each time I hear it-"

"You might wanna brush up on your definition of irony pal," Dean cut in. He had been trying for a while to find some way out of the invisible barrier that was pinning him down. But nothing had worked, even pulling so hard he felt that his arms and shoulders were going to break. Crowley had watched his attempts with nothing but amusement. "Cause it seems our batting average trumps yours."

"Batting average?" Crowley's voice was amused. "Can't get the sarcasm up without your muse?"

"Bite me," Dean snapped.

"Still wallowing in pathetic," Crowley said like he was a school teacher. He circled Dean's chair like a fat cat eyeing a canary in a cage. "Ever since you've come bottom side you've been more tingly for little Sammy; Now why do you supposed that is Dean?"

"You really need to put down the porn once in a while Crowley-"

"Could be because the little shit's your brother; baby brother at that." Crowley went on as though Dean hadn't said anything. "All sorts of pathetic human emotions of nurture and love come into play. But sacrificing yourself repeatedly for the snot nosed is over kill. No, it's different. It's about the souls, mate."

"What the hell are you talking about?" Dean cut in.

Crowley stepped over to him and sat down in the empty chair Sam had been at. "When I and you Ultimate BFF Cas were cheating on you two years ago collecting souls, I discovered an encyclopedia's worth about the little buggers. Mainly that the existence of soul mates isn't a load of waffle like Celine Dion's show in Las Vegas. Two souls bound together give off a resonance when they come down to hell at the same time. Hell also amplifies the link, makes things painful for the other one is in danger," a smug smile was across Crowley's face. "Starting to sound like anyone you know Dean?"

Dean was thinking a lot of things at that moment to retort to the demon. Things that involved the phrase: _'your mother.' _ But, just as quickly as his mouth started to open, it closed. The sarcasm was shut down when he understood Crowley's words with the bright clarity of a knife cut.

"You think Sam and I are _soul mates?"_

"_Ding, Ding, Ding."_ Crowley held up one finger. "The gentlemen just won a new Maserati. Also, I know, not _think _ you and Sam are soul mates. Being King of Hell lets me privy to certain things."

"Wow, and here I thought you liked me because of my winning personality," Dean managed a deadpan despite the sudden bombardment of new information. But, even bound to a chair and in _hell_ he knew that it wasn't new information, not really. It was just the first time anyone, even dick head demon said such a fact out loud.

"Don't flatter yourself ." Crowley returned. "You and your giraffe moose hybrid of a brother are tangled up with your souls like sheeted bedfellows. It's always made you so. bloody. interesting. I came down, when Allistar had you in front of him, and when Sam was Cage matching fighting with Lucifer, had lads topside each time to watch the Left Behind Winchester - like killing two lovebirds with one stone. I've been pining for a long time to get you both down here at the same time – want a front row seat while one of you get the life tortured out of you while the other watches. Then I kill the one that's left." Crowley gave a low smile, so seemingly sweet it was decayed. "Imagine how _OMG_ I was when you came down here together-" Crowley bent low right over Dean's left ear, and whispered his next words: "As soon as what's left of Sam comes back up here to free you I'll start popping corn for the show."

"I'm gonna kill you-" Dean growled like an angry pitbull poked one time too many with a stick. He jerked hard in the chair and it shook his whole body. "_I'm gonna kill you!"_

Crowley brought back a fist and slammed it into Dean's face.

The impact felt like a cinderblock had hit him square on in the face. Dean felt the cartilage in his nose break and blood sprayed out of both nostrils. Blood dripped down his left eye, and blinded him.

Crowley raised Dean's chin with his thumb. "Show darling; don't tell."

A shadow broke in front of the chair, just over Crowley's right shoulder. Dean's vision was blurred, but he was able to make out the form of a dark blonde, in a black trench coat, able to make them out, but not understand what the hell was going on.

Dean didn't talk, but Crowley turned, sensing something. The King of Hell's eyes widened at the sight:"Maggie," Crowley glared at the witch. "Haven't seen you since the Witch Trials. I have to ask, since it's my bloody office, and it's supposed to be warded against surprise visits – what the bloody hell are you doing here?"

Dean looked from Crowley to Maggie, blood bubbling up and down his nose each time he breathed. Everything seemed to be happening like stop motion animation, moving so quickly from one thing to another that he didn't have time to process it.

"I came for the Winchesters," Maggie had her hands in the pockets of her trench coat, like it was a casual conversation. "Your office had a lot of turn over before you Crowley - I still have a key to the side door."

"If you _think_ that I'm just going to hand over the Winchesters to you darling, then obviously all that hair bleach has seeped into your brain." Crowley retorted.

Maggie was a petite thing, she barely cleared Crowley's shoulders. But she blinked, and her eyes became ancient, and pissed."I wasn't asking." She removed a hand from her pocket. A symbol was carved into the flesh of her palm, and it dripped blood. She thrust this at Crowley's face, chanting a dead language.

Crowley reared back with a scream, his eye sockets and mouth glowing with a bright red light. The light soon engulfed the room.

Dean had to close his one good eye, and when he opened them again, Crowley had vanished, and left behind a scorch mark like a burn on the floor. Maggie stepped over this and shoved her non carved hand onto Dean's face and said a softer, longer chant.

Dean felt the cartilage in his nose mend with a _pop_ that made him cry out. He looked over at the witch. Just like Don, he had never expected to see her again: "Maggie- I'm grateful-"

"Then shut up," Maggie waved a hand and the tension that had held Dean in was released. "I sent the little prick topside to the Canary Islands. The spell short circuited his demon powers, but only for about an hour- so whatever you and Sam are going to do, do it fast-"

Dean stood up, the muscles in his legs and back protesting. He walked over to Crowley's desk and picked up the angel blade and Ruby's knife, jamming both into his coat. "Why are you helping us?"

"What did I say about shutting up?" Maggie snapped, turning her head so fast that her mass of blond curls shook into her face. "Baal turned Don and I; she _owns_ us for eternity; and she isn't forgetful of that fact. You seal her ass in here; I'm done being her bitch."

Dean grabbed the demon weapon off the desk. It was heavy, almost as heavy as the ax he had lifted from Purgatory. It was also too bulky to tuck away, so he kept hold on it. He turned to the witch: "Crowley sent Sam's to Lucifer's Cage I need to know where it is."

"I've never been there-" Maggie said. "It's warded against demons and witches, protection for the Devil so no one tries kill him in his sleep and secede him."

"A lot good that did," Dean snapped. Maggie had healed his wounds, but the blood still remained on his face. He wiped a splatter off with the heel of his hand. He tried the door, but found it didn't open. He banged on it hard in frustration with both fists.

"Next time, just ask," Maggie stepped over to the door in four inch nude heels. She placed a hand on the lock and recited a quick, two word incantation.

The bolts inside clicked audibly. Dean pulled the door open. The stone hallway outside the door was empty, the flicker of the red glowed like a slaughter hand just taken place on the stone.

Hunter and Witch stepped outside the door, Dean looking left, Maggie looking right.

"It's this way," Maggie stared down an hallway that was so long the red light faded into black shadow. "Circles of hell run counterclockwise," she bent down and removed her shoes.

Dean gave her a look, to which Maggie countered with: "They'll make too much noise."

"You can't bewitch yourself some moccasins?" Dean returned.

Maggie gave him a look like he was simple. "Moccasins don't match this outfit."

Dean gave her a '_really_?'look in return. But they were too exposed standing outside Crowley's office to argue. "Alright, I'll go first-"

"I'm a _witch_ sweetheart," Maggie snapped.

"And I'm guessing Baal won't be too thrilled when she sees her former protégée going rogue with a Hunter _sweetheart."_

Maggie was only a handful of days younger than Don; the daughter of a merchant in Wales. She had been well-to-do for most of her life before she had run off of the with Don. So she had learned how to perfect her glower, and now she had the power to back it up. But she kept it at bay, because she didn't like being in Hell any more than Dean did.

"If you die, I'm using your body as extra shielding," Maggie said. Without her shoes she was a good five inches shorter than Dean. But the way she carried herself made up for her lack of height.

"Noted," Dean returned. He stepped slowly away from the door hearing Maggie padding behind him in her stocking feet.

The hallway continued red. For a long while there was no sounds of screaming, nothing. As tortuous as the screaming had been; the lack of noise was unnerving to Dean. Hell wasn't _silent._

Maggie seemed to be just as unsettled as he was, the few times he glanced behind him, he saw her pressing a hand to the stone wall like she was trying to steady herself.

After about 400 yards the hallway had narrowed so that only one person could walk down it at a time.

Dean took two more steps then felt himself being yanked back hard by the tail of his shirt. He turned to the witch "_Wha-?"_

Maggie clamped a hand over his mouth before he could finish talking. She pushed past him, her back pressed into his briefly. She faced something towards the left wall.

Dean felt air moving past him, not air, but enough to signal a gap in the hallway. He grasped the demon blade in his hand and pulled it out, and moved to where Maggie had stopped.

The air had indeed been coming from a change in the hallway position. But what Dean was facing as too massive to be a gap. It was a recession in the wall that seemed to be at least 30 feet wide.

Dozens of figures sat huddled and squashed in the small space. Their clothing, their hair, their skin, were all a washed out gray. Here there were no bars, but the figures were all chained, some manacled two or three to a single iron chain. There were so many of them that it was hard to discern one figure from another. They fought and writhed, mouths open like they were screaming. But all that came out were sounds like air being pushed through broken reed pipes.

Dean turned to Maggie, before he could ask her anything, Maggie mouthed '_shhh'_ and motioned down where the hallway continued.

Dean kept his hand on the knife. The air here was rancid and stale like all those silent screams had putrefied in it. Dean walked past the writing silent mass, the only sounds were their banging chains and his boot steps. He felt a few spindled fingers grab at his ankles, and when he shook them off the rattling chains grew louder and angrier.

The gap that seemed 30 feet wide, turned out to be 30 _yards _wide. The torch light above this space had turned as gray as the silent mass. Maggie's dark blonde hair was the only bright color to be seen.

Finally the gap receded back into the wall and the light became red again. Dean turned around seeing where the gray enveloped the red behind him.

"Can I ask what the hell now?" He had been grasping the knife so hard that he felt a hole like indentation in his palm. "What was that?"

"_Tacitus"_ Maggie said. She had stopped holding her shoes at some point, but Dean hadn't even noticed. "Their tongues were cut out by demons so they can't speak. If you talk in front of them they'll take your voice – it means we're coming to a junction. Lucifer put them here so they'll stop anyone from talking about where he built his palace."

"Lucifer has a palace?" Dean looked left and right, but all he saw was blackness and the gray silence behind him. No demons. But it wasn't exactly a comforting experience.

"He built it back when he first fell. Baal said he built it to replicate God's palace in heaven. But then an angel brigade came and erected an jail cell inside his throne room, spelled it to keep him in it and threw him inside. His followers couldn't get him out on their own, so they added demon sigil to protect him until they found a way to release him."

"That's where the Cage is?" Dean asked the question, but he already knew the answer.

"The Fourth Circle," Maggie said. "If Crowley really sent your brother to Lucifer, then that's where he is."

"I thought Hell had _nine_ circles," Dean countered.

"Dante was drunk as a skunk when he wrote half of the Divine Comedy,  he could barely _count_ to nine let alone compose a meter on it."Maggie furiously whipped her head left and right. "We have to move, my magic short circuits the closer we get to the Cage, it won't be able to protect us much longer-"

"_Aww, I'm sorry."_

Baal stood in the shadowed part of the hallway, legs apart. Her signature smile was no longer there, instead there was a glowered anger: "You disappoint me Magauriete, you were such a promising student-" Baal's voice was the girl she rode. That girl had died over a dozen years ago. But the demon liked the sound of her voice.

"Baal," Maggie's shoes were suddenly back in her hand, and she slid them on her feet, adding height back. She stared the demon up and down like she was appraising her outfit. "Still slutting around I see."

"You're the one whoring around with a Winchester," Baal still didn't smile. "What would Don say?"

"Find Sam, Dean," Maggie didn't even look over to Dean when she said this. "I'll take care of the garbage."

"You told family secrets Maggie," Baal's stepped closer. "I'm going to redecorate Crowley's tacky office with your insides, then I'm going to string up Farmer Boy here with what's left of your intestines-"

"You can try." Maggie stared at her coldly.

Baal twisted a hand in mid air at the same time Maggie shot both hands forward. Maggie was knocked flat on her back. But so was Baal. The demon recovered first. She turned with a growl towards Dean and flicked her wrist.

Dean was sent flying into Maggie who has halfway up on her feet; she was knocked back down.

Dean pulled himself off of her, but he was still leaning near her. He turned behind him to the gray hallway. "You know any silent incantations to draw in metal?' Maggie shook her head just briefly. He yanked her to her feet. "Back up, and cast it when I say-"

"Hey, _bitch!"_ Dean called down the hall to Baal. "You pick the blonde thing to wear because of the scank ass ugly underneath?" Dean watched Baal stop breathing, looking at him like meat she wanted to strip off a rabbit paused in the brush. "Or were you honestly sad enough to think that you were pretty and could pull it off?"

Baal pulled out a long silver knife waved like a snake all along its length. "I'm going to carve you like a Turkey , boy."

"Maggie now!" Dean yelled.

Maggie was standing in the grayed area; she raised both arms, and the lanterns in their holders began to rattle and split, one broke near Dean and a piece of it went whizzing towards the witch.

Baal's knife was yanked hard in her hand. She pulled hard, her shoes scrapping and sliding on the floor. The knife flew out of her hand, landing centimeters away from Maggie's feet.

"You honestly thought that was going to work?" Baal taunted over Dean's shoulder at Maggie. "I _made_ you!" Baal broke off when she was thrust forward a few inches like something was dragging her.

Dean backed against the wall "Then you shouldn't underestimate her," he dropped his eyes to the biker boots, then to the studded bracelets, and finally to the huge belt buckle. "Or next time not be so much of a metal head."

Baal screamed as she was dragged along the hallway. She stopped inches away from Maggie, her screaming died out. But then one of the hands of the _Tacite _grabbed at her ankles, then another, and another. They pinned her down, their hands clawing angrily.

Dean grabbed his demon knife from off the ground and stabbed it in Baal's foot. Baal's reaction was primal, and before she could stop it, a thundering scream tore from her mouth.

The screaming was abruptly cut off like someone had muted the volume on the television. Then it came back from the side, as one of the gray figures picked up the scream, then another.

"_We will kill you evil servant!"_ A figure shaped like a man, spoke in Baal's voice, his hand latched to her ankles.

Dean backed out of the circle pulling Maggie with him. Once they were out of the grayed area. Maggie turned to him. "I'll hold her off-"

"I'm not leaving you alone with that scank-" Dean and Maggie weren't friends. He wasn't even sure exactly _what _ they were to each other; but she had just stuck her neck out for him and he wasn't going to abandon her.

"I'm not asking a question," Maggie raised both arms in front of her.

Baal was still screaming- although she was voiceless the emitting force cracked the stone ceiling overhead and pieces of it collapsed like hail around the demon.

The _Tacitus_ screamed in Baal's silence, using her voice. They echoed like a murder of crows, louder and louder, as the chunks of stone that fell became larger and larger.

A huge mass of rock as big as a serving platter dropped inches away from Maggie's head. But she didn't even finch, her stance firm. "Find your brother," her eyes seemed to draw on the strength of her 925 years. "I'll be fine." She raised one of her arms higher, just for a moment, and flipped it around. A dark black tree was scorched into the flesh just below her wrist. "You have your life link – I have mine. _Go!"_ She flicked her hand backwards and sent Dean skidding back three feet. "If I have to say it again, you're walking out of here with hooves and a tail!"

The stone ceiling was already shredded like flayed skin, most of what had been up there already spilled on the ground below. But there was still one last piece, massive, the size of a door hanging precariously by one jagged edge. This edge was wedged into a piece of rock that looked like a pebble compared to it. The weight finally became too for the smaller piece, and the slab broke free and crashed to the ground.

Dean dived back into a roll, avoiding being crushed by seconds. A cloud of dust billowed around him. Stinging tears leaked down his eyes that blinded him, his throat closed up in hacking coughs.

When the dust finally settled Maggie had vanished behind the other side of the giant wall of rock.

And Dean was alone on the other side.

**x**


	12. The Devil and Sam Winchester

**xxxxxXxxxx**

**Chapter 11 – "The Devil and Sam Winchester"**

"_A fiddle of gold against your soul says I'm better than you."_

~Lucifer

_Supernatural: "Swan Song"_

**xxxxxXxxxxx**

"It's good to see you," Lucifer let go of the bars and raised his other arm to lean across them lazily. "You should have told me you were coming; I'd a baked a cake."

Sam held the demon knife out in front of him; ice crystals formed on the tip of the blade with an audible noise. "Stay away from me-"

Lucifer smiled at Sam like he was an amusing idiot. "Apparently irony is lost on you Sam- _Hello-_"he wrapped his knuckles on the bars of the Cage, and the sound resonated. "-_Cage._ The only way I won't stay away from you is if you come closer."

Lucifer still wore the face of Nick, the mad he had taken over in possession when he had been freed from Hell. Sam had hallucinated this image for months; but being here without the luxury of hallucination; the reality of the ice coldness, black bars, it flooded him with flashbacks that jammed like ice picks in his eyes.

"Why do you look-" Sam searched for a word as he forced the disorientation away. "-human?"

Lucifer glanced down at himself like he was just noticing the color of his clothes. "Is that what you seeing? That's all you buddy. We spent a _lot_ of time together Sam. You're seeing what you want to see."

"Do you even have a true face then?" Sam's voice was thick, his _Hunter's_ voice, even though his heart tried to break out of his ribcage. He spent too long being the Devil's bitch, he wasn't about to do it again. "Or is it all just smoke and mirrors?"

Lucifer lowered his head and laughed quietly to himself, like what Sam had said was highly amusing.

A blast of arctic chilled air rushed at Sam and Lucifer's shape grew taller, as large as the Cage, a towering black shape with a twisted face of narrowed yellowed eyes and curled Ram's horns that dripped black blood.

Coiled sharp talon fingers scraped the bars of the Cage with an ear splitting screech that dropped Sam to the ground with a cry and his hands over his ears.

The noise finally stopped, but left Sam with a dizzying ring in his head. When he faced the Cage again Lucifer's form was back to Nick, standing there watching him.

"The Cage limits my powers- I'm normally at lot taller, but you get the idea."

Sam hauled himself to his feet, the knife was still tightly gripped in his hand.

"I spent 180 years with you kid, I can practically read your mind." Lucifer started to pace the length of his Cage like it was a cell in a jail. " So how about you quit stalling and tell me the truth. Liars go to Hell Sam; but I still would like to know."

Sam formed a crazy idea in his mind, like insanely _massively, balls out_ crazy. But he was standing beside the Devil in hell; crazy might just be his best option.

"I came here to kill you," Sam stepped more inside the circle; the sand yielded under his boots, but did not leave footprints.

"With that?" The Devil eyed the black knife in Sam's hand with amused sarcasm. "It's a can opener."

"I had an Angel Blade," Sam drew closer to the Cage and it became more detailed. Hanging stalactites were bundled in a shadowed group on the right side of the ceiling. "Your King took it."

"Crowley is an unborn maggot that thinks himself king. It's unfortunate ," Lucifer's voice was dismissive. "But it's more unfortunate that you came down here to try and end me when you're just one big PTSD flashback." Lucifer leaned into the bars on one arm. "The prophecies are already written Sammy," his head drew closer like he was whispering a secret. "You couldn't kill me the first time, so you jumped down here to be my bitch," a smug smile crawled up the Devil's face. "Are you going to try again with the power of love?"

"Fuck you!" Sam spat back

Lucifer wagged a finger at him like he was a petulant child. "Language."

When Lucifer had started talking Sam started walking the length of the Cage. He examined the black stalactites above, the place where he'd seen the gold flash of the key when Missouri had put him under back at the bunker. But, he didn't let his eyes lock on anything for too long; he kept shifting them from above, then back to Lucifer. He was playing on the aspect that the devil had been his torturer and tormenter for over a century; so that his actions would appear jumpy and not methodical.

"I'm not locked in there anymore," Sam was at the right junction of the Cage; where the metal formed a right angled corner before it continued. "But _you_ are, and that's never going to change."

Lucifer smiled like he appreciated the comment. "Feisty Sammy, where was all that fire inside here? It were all _hype, hype, hype _until you came down to me; then you were just liquefied pussy." The left corner that Lucifer had originally emerged from had a low lip of stone and he sat down on it like it was a bench in the park. "Though you might change your tune in a minute."

"What are you talking about?" Sam said. He didn't follow the Devil when he drew back into the recesses of the Cage; he still stood at the junction, facing him.

Lucifer had drawn one leg up against his chest in a lazy fashion. "You clueless slaughtered cow," he shrugged a laugh so dry it crackled. His leg lowered and his face emerged from the shadow, yellow eyes gleamed in the darkness. "You were always more of a _show_ than a _tell_ kind of guy."

The Devil stood back up and walked towards him.

Sam backed up until he was arms length away from the bars. This wasn't a man he was backing away from; who knew how much he could do within the circle, but it was instinct.

"Relax Sam," Lucifer stopped in the center of the Cage. "I just have a present for you." He twisted a hand in mid air like he was screwing in a light bulb.

There was a black stalactite that was larger than the others, covered in multiple layers of black stone coated in a layer of ice like it had been repeatedly fossilized. It began to break and split apart at the base where a round protrusion stuck out like a growth.

Layers of rock began to splinter away, and like a hideous birth a humiod shape began to emerge with a scream. It was a body, that hung upside down; with blue eyes dull, but piercing against skin that was leached of all color.

"_Sam?" _the figure panted on his scream, the voice was rough as sand paper.

"Adam?" Sam's eyes widened in horrified shock at the hung figure of Adam Milligan. His and Dean's half brother.

"Little brother Adam," Lucifer turned toward Sam "You remember him now? Michael's 'little boy scout brigade managed to secret him back to heaven; left a bit of a contrail though for the poor kid though-"

Sam's breath began to pick up as he stared at what little of Adam he could see. His eyes were so clouded they looked clotted, and his scalp was covered with more dried blood than hair.

"I actually don't blame you Sam for forgetting about him;" Lucifer glanced up at Adam like he was an amusing toy he had just bought. "He's just a bastard after all."

"Let him go you son-of-a-bitch!" Sam shouted.

"I can't _let_ anyone go Sam," Lucifer said. "They threw away the key when they slammed me back in here. You could always go find the Four Horsemen and beg them for the use of their rings again; but that would take away _all_ the hard work you did to put me in here. I mean, " Lucifer stepped closer to Adam, reaching a hand out to touch the side of his body that was encased in the rock. "It's not like I'd just sit here once you got the door open-"

Lucifer pushed against the rock and Adam gave a piercing scream; blood began to streak down his head and shoulders, splattering like rain onto the stone below.

"Stop it!" Sam screamed. He grabbed the bars of the Cage and shook them hard; they were so heavy that they didn't even rattle. Ice instantly frosted over Sam's hands, burning them. He jerked back with a cry.

"I didn't do this to him Sam, _you_ did!" Lucifer's voice rose. Adam's blood began to turn the stone completely red.

Sam's palms were bright red from the cold. But he jumped back on the bars anyway, this time throwing his entire weight against the black metal.

Lucifer's hand reached through the bars and snatched at Sam's jacket, slamming him up against the Cage.

"I make no part of my relationships gray." The Devil's face was inches away from Sam. "But, you, Death plucked _your_ soul out of here and the moment you were topside you spooned with big brother Dean and forgot all about Adam. You left your brother with the _Devil_. Which one of us is the real evil?"

Sam grunted, his hand with the knife reaching up to draw it. He managed to pull it out from under his body and brought the blade down on Lucifer's hand, all the way through the flesh and into the metal of the bars.

Lucifer reared back angrily and released Sam. The knife was pinning him down to the bars. "You little shit!"He jerked his hand up like he was loosening a nail from a wall.

Sam moved quickly back around to the corner where Adam was hanging. The younger man's eyes were open, but he was moving them weakly, in a daze.

"Adam, _Adam_!" Sam banged both fists on the bars on the bars, not feeling the burning anymore, his hands were completely numb now.

The noise seemed to shake Adam back into a level of lucidity. He blinked once, his body recoiling like it had been electrocuted. "Sam?" A trail of blood pooled into Adam's mouth and he gagged.

"Hey-stay with me you understand?" Sam reached through the bars and tried to tear at the black stone that was encasing Adam's body; but it was like trying to dig a hole in concrete. His fingertips were soon stained bloody, and he had made only scratches for progress. But he kept trying. "Just hang in there- I'm going to get you down-"

A flash of gold suddenly fell down in front of Adam's mouth. It was a thin gold cord, thin but long. It dangled from up in the stone; hanging off of it was a gold skeleton key.

Adam's eyes went wide, he stared at the key upside down, like he couldn't comprehend what it was. Like he thought it was a piece of his flesh that had turned to metal. "You got out-" A flash accusation was in his eyes; but it melted into a piercing hurt, and abandonment.

Sam pulled on the chain, trying to loosen it from around Adam's neck, but it didn't move. He tried again; Adam screamed at the contact.

"I'm sorry, sorry-" Sam needed that key, but he abandoned it and reached up to try and chip more at the rock to break Adam free."I'm going to get you out okay?" Sam didn't have time to give into the despair of emotions that were trying to choke him, he kept yanking at the stone. Finally it started to give way, Adam's body began to slide out like a hideous upside down birth.

"Hold on," Sam did his best to guide Adam's body down to the ground.

Lucifer's hand gripped Sam's wrist, and yanked down with a force that made Sam scream, and lose his hold on Adam.

Without anything to ease his decent Adam dropped hard in a mess of blood to the ground.

The hand the Devil was using to grip Sam's wrist oozed blood from the hole he had torn into it from ripping the knife out of his skin. "That hurt Sam." He let go of Sam's arm and threw him back across the floor.

Sam was thrown out of the circle, sliding hard on his back on the white mosaic tile.

Lucifer reached down ripped the gold chain from Adam's neck, and plunged it deep inside his chest.

"_No!"_ Sam screamed and scrambled up to his feet. He ran back inside the circle, right next to the Cage bars.

Adam writhed in brutal agony, body convulsing up off the floor; his scream horrific.

"Want to close the Gates of Hell do we?" Lucifer pulled his arm out of Adam's body; it came back coated in blood up the elbow. "Let's see how much-" he walked back to the bars of the Cage. The demon's knife was still embedded inside the metal of the bars. Lucifer grasped and yanked it out

"The key's inside his heart; all you have to do-" The Devil held the knife out, hilt first, to Sam. "Is reach in there and get it out. Of course Adam still has his body-"

Sam's eyes were on Adam who was on his back on the stone, panting, coated in blood. His scream had died into gasps, gasps that were choked, and his body was still wracked with tremors.

"-and it would kill him. But that's why they call it a _Trial_," Lucifer pushed the knife out more through the bars. The flesh on his hands were covered with a thin layer of scales. "Best me, Sam. – Kill your younger half brother; and you can lock up and go home."

"Not a chance in hell!" Sam said back.

"Burning daylight here Sam," Lucifer taunted. "I'm not exactly going to just pull it out and hand it to you. And it's kinda late to start caring about him now-"

"_Shut up!"_ Sam screamed.

"_Sam,"_ the voice came from the ground. Adam's body shook like a wave. "_Do it-"_

Sam looked down at the writhing figure "Adam, no-"

"_Please!"_ Adam shouted. His eyes were barely a color anymore; pupils dilated, pained. "_I just want it to stop-"_

Adam looked half dead, gone. Stretched beyond any pain threshold that any human being had ever experienced. "_I want it to stop-"_

Sam's breaths chased each other through teeth clenched so tightly he could hear them grinding against themselves. He looked up at Lucifer. "Throw it on the ground."

The Devil complied without resistance; only with a cock of his head.

Sam bent down and picked up the knife; small granules of sand were stuck to the tip of the blade.

Adam was lying in a crooked angle at the corner junction of the Cage; half of him leaning up against the bars. He was naked save for dried black blood that coated his skin like clothing. Jagged and lacerations streaked over his body, visible even over the blood.

Sam's breaths refused to draw in anything but harsh pants. He stared at the knife; the sharp acuity of the blade.

Adam's eyes had turned almost completely gray; only the very edge of his iris's peaked even a hint of the blue they once had been.

Sam reached his arm through the Cage; he watched Adam track his movements. The knife was poised above Adam's chest. He wanted to pull it back; he felt the muscles in his arm shake in protest. "I'm sorry." He forced himself to raise the knife high.

"I'm glad it's you Sam," Adam's voice shook just for a moment.

Sam felt a shudder run all down his entire body as he brought the blade down quickly. It hit Adam's chest and sank in deep. Adam screamed, but the sound was choked, stuttering.

The knife hit something hard and when Sam pulled it out the chain was stuck to the blade by a coat of blood.

Adam's screaming had stopped, and he was still against the bars, limp.

The sound of offbeat clapping came from the Devil's hands. "Didn't think you had the balls;" Lucifer whistled. "You earned your solid gold fiddle kid-"

Sam peeled off the chain from the blade. He thrust out the knife and threw himself at Lucifer's form.

A hissing tearing wail burst into his ears and dropped him to his knees in a scream.

"I was going to give you a five minute head start before I alert the media about this-" Lucifer stepped over Adam's body like it was a piece of trash left in the road. "Now it's _four_ minutes-" the he reached through the bars and grabbed Sam by his hair, snapping his neck back; slamming it against the bars.

Sam felt something in his head crack, and blood dripped into his eyes. The sting blinded him. He grabbed at the bars, ice burning his hand and pulled himself to his feet.

Through the blood he could see Lucifer leaning over Adam's still body, tsking.

"_Leave him alone-!"_ Sam screamed.

The sand beneath him began to sink; Sam felt his legs being pulled down like quick sand. A blackness began to open up between his legs; swirling like a vortex. It grew larger and opened into a gaping hole.

There was a last glimpse of Lucifer giving him a mocking wave and Sam was falling headlong through cold complete blackness.

He landed on something hard and packed that rattled from his shoes up to his bones in a liquefied blast of hot pain. The world felt at a dizzying slant.

Sam coughed and groaned, feeling something wet splash onto his fingers. Splashes of blood glowed like neon light against a backdrop of harsh red lanterns.

He was standing again in an endless hallway; the echoes of tortured screams all around him. The chain was still in his hand, key dangling from it. It wasn't a large thing, the size of a house key, but it was thick.

Sam yanked apart the chain which broke as if it were paper. It was sticky, coated in red, coated in Adam's blood. He wanted to punch something. In the end he opened his mouth in a silent scream.

He stored the key into his pocket; yanking out the wrinkled piece of paper with the Enocain symbols._"Ka na am dar."_

He dropped to his knees, his entire arm on fire; gasp after gasp fought for competition out of his throat, and blood began to splash like a river at his feet. He clamped down on his tongue to keep from screaming, and a thick wave of blood joined what fell out of his mouth. He found himself unable to breath, choking on the mass amounts of blood.

He grabbed along the bricks of the wall, trying to claw his way back to his feet; body heaving in an effort to pull in even the stale warm hell air.

Something grabbed him around the throat.

A man in a thick leather jacket with dark red eyes. "Sam Winchester-" The dark skinned face flashed briefly into something that looked like it was melted. "Trying to sneak into hell are we?" the crossroads demon; one of the upper echelon shook his head at Sam, slamming him against the brick. "Big no no! Oh when Crowley gets a hold of you, it ain't gonna be pretty-"

The blood welled in Sam's throat, feeling like it was creeping up to his eyes. The urge to black out slammed into him like a tidal wave. He watched the demon raise a double bladed serrated knife.

The blade grazed the edge of his neck – Sam intercepted it. Fist tight on the blade, cutting into his hand, He forced the knife around, his entire body felt like it was on fire now from the effort.

The demon ripped the knife out of his hand and threw it down the hallway in one direction, then flung Sam in the other direction over a dozen yards.

Sam rolled end over end and came to a stop on his stomach.

"You don't look so hot there Sammy, " the demon mocked. He walked down the other direction of the hallway and picked up his knife. "Don't worry," he started towards him. "I'm going to take care of that-"

A choke broke into the demon's throat. The metal point of a knife stuck out of his neck, and his body shuttered in a flicker of orange light before he dropped.

Dean's figure emerged from behind the demon like a performer behind the curtain.

Sam rolled onto his hands at the sound. He pushed himself up onto his knees. He turned his head, painfully; spotting his brother coming towards him. "Dean-" Sam grappled for leverage on the rock; he was on his feet so fast his muscles didn't have time to catch up. His legs buckled, but he used the wall as a support, yanking himself along it brick by brick.

Dean stepped over the body and ran to close the distance.

As soon as they came within reaching distance of each other; Dean grabbed for his brother, and Sam let go of the wall, falling around Dean, arms clawing up his back.

Their senses dulled from everything else except each other.

Sam's heart hammered against his brother's shirt. Dean pushed down sobs, forced himself to let go. It was almost physically painful.

"It's okay," Sam was breathing heavily, hand still on his brother's shoulder. The need for contact with him in Hell was primal. "I got it," he fumbled for key in his pocket, holding it out for Dean to see. "I got it."

An echoing of high barking came from deep at the end of the hallway behind them; raising their heads towards the noise.

"Come on," Dean shoved the key back into Sam's coat pocket. He slung one of Sam's arms up over his shoulder, and pulled him off the wall.

Sam's feet stumbled in time with Dean's; their shoes banging against the stone as the barking drew closer.


	13. Twilight Again

**xxxxXxxxx**

**Chapter 12-"Twilight"**

"_Can you imagine what I would do if I could do all I can?"_

~Sun Tzu The Art of War

**xxxxxXxxxxx**

"Who are you!" The cast iron frying pan was hardly considered a _formidable _weapon. But in the hands of a teenager with a pharmacy's stock of amphetamines in his blood and a grand total of four hours of sleep in 12 days; it was wielded as dangerous as the sharpest double blade sword.

"Just calm down alright?-" The man with curly brown hair that met into a thick beard/mustache combo held out his hands like he recognized that the strung out teen could inflict considerable damage on his skull with his choice of weapon.

"I'm not gonna calm down!" Kevin raised the frying pan higher like a baseball bat. The black cast iron shook in his hands from the side effects of too many blue pills. "_Who are you? How'd you find me?"_

"My name's Chuck," Chuck kept his hands out like he was trying to subdue a bear who had caught the scent of a picnic. "I'm a Prophet- well _former_ Profit considering you're here. As to how I found you; I saw a _Bed Bath and Beyond_ with Enochian and Demon warding sigils and got a little curious-" Chuck looked around at the salt and pepper grinders in the shape of tiny chefs, garlic presses, safety can openers, and other various items of culinary use that lined white metal shelves.

"You were a Prophet?" Kevin lowered his frying pan eying Chuck warily. When Chuck made no move to attack him or eat him, he set the pan back up on the display.

Chuck nodded. "The whole thing's like a bad LSD flashback." His hands lowered completely after Kevin had set down the frying pan. But just to be safe he picked it up and pulled it away from Kevin. Though it was most likely a futile effort since they were _surrounded _by frying pans, as well as deboning scissors, and entire knife block sets.

"Why'd you come here?" Kevin asked, his body still tense, the odor emitting from his gray shirt reaching Chuck from their foot separation.

"There's this angel, guy in a trench coat with a lose grasp of humor; he said he couldn't find you; so he came to me-little akward for my date, but she'll get over it, hopefully-"

Kevin still gave Chuck the _stank eye_. He picked up the frying pan again, watching Chuck eye it like it was live bomb. "It's not safe here-" Kevin turned and started walking down an aisle of silverware.

Chuck followed him through the store. Since it was after hours, the aisles were only lit by flood lights. A brief glance at the security cameras stationed at the corners showed that they weren't rotating and their red lights were off. The kid had disabled them.

They came to an area where there was a variety of wedding china displayed on lit shelves. Behind the dishes there was a hallway that led into men's and women's public restrooms. A spray painted angel ward sigil was painted in neon orange on the front of the men's room door.

Kevin pushed open the door, walking over a Devil's Trap painted in the same color as the sigils on the white tile just outside the swinging door.

Like the rest of the store, the bathroom was lit only by flood lights. They cast shadows along the line of porcelain sinks and porcelain urinals that face each other from opposite sides of the tiled wall.

There was two kerosene camp lanterns; one on the edge of one of the skin basins; and the other on the ground. Their illuminations didn't travel far; but they gave more visibility to scrawled sigils painted on almost every inch of the walls.

Kevin walked to the back corner. Besides the lantern there was a striped floral comforter spread out on the floor with a pillow at one end, and a legal pad at the other. Next to the blanket was a kettle on a battery run hot plate, dozens of little _Keurig_ _K Cups_ stacked beside it, piles of boxed candy, and a butcher knife.

Chuck took a look at the set up, eying it like he might eye somebody's collection of paintings done in feces. "It's nice-you don't have to go far to-" he eyed the urinals, his voice stalled out.

"I stepped out for some air, and demons were on me," Kevin sat down on the pile of blankets. "This was the closet place I could find to run to." He opened the lid of the kettle and poured five _Doughnut House K Cups _ into the hot water, mixing it with the butcher knife. His eyes turned up to Chuck who was standing beside the sink where the lantern teetered. "Why'd you really come here?"

"That angel I told you about-"

"_Castiel,_" Kevin interrupted. He checked the consistency of the water he stirred; then added another _K Cup_ "We've met," He stopped stirring poured the black mixture in the kettle into two pink and red stripped travel mugs. He handed one of them to Chuck.

"Thanks," Chuck bent down and took the cup; eying what was inside. The grounds of coffee swirled like dirt in the water, so Chuck simply held it in his hands; but he watched as Kevin drank a huge hit from it like it was whiskey. "Castiel told me about the Demon Tablet; and the Trials; he said I had to come help-"

"How can you help?" Kevin took another huge swallow of his coffee. "Only Prophets can read the Tablets-"

"All I know is an angel came into my room when more than my inhibitions were down-" Chuck stopped when he realized how that statement sounded. "-and he told me that I had my part to play in this-"

"What kind of part?" Kevin asked.

"Haven't figured that out yet," Chuck said with a bit of a laugh. He was sitting on the floor of a public men's room drinking coffee and discussing demons and angels-there was no description for that. "Let me see the Tablet-"

Kevin's look of suspicion came out again; his hand that rested near the butcher knife twitched. But he stood up and walked into the only stall that was at the end of the urinals. He removed the lid of the toilet tank and pulled out a bundle of burlap cloth soaked in the tank water.

He came back out and unwrapped the cloth revealing the broken black stone of the Tablet.

Chuck walked over to Kevin and looked at the stone nestled in the cloth. He reached out, and when Kevin didn't object, picked up the stone.

Flashes began to assault Chuck's vision; making him nearly drop the Tablet.

"Whoa, watch it!" Kevin caught the tablet before it broke on the tile floor. "What the hell man?" He turned to the older man watching him stumble like he was drunk for a second. "Dude are you okay?"

Chuck grabbed onto the wall and shook his head. When he looked back up at Kevin, something in his eyes had changed, a look of almost revelation came across it. "I fell-"

"What?" Kevin gave him a cock eyed look.

"I fell," Chuck looked at him like he had drunk so much alcohol it had brought out something buried. "After I wrote it, they weren't happy, they said it revealed too much-" Chuck grabbed the tablet, running his hands over it.

"What are you doing?" Kevin said.

"They wanted to destroy it." Chuck frantically touched the scratches on the tablet like he was trying to read Braille. But I took it; I took both of them and I jumped. I was born again, and I forgot-"

"Forgot _what_? Dude, you're _freaking_ me out!" Kevin's voice was shrill, and he didn't even care to be embarrassed about it. "Who are you, _really?"_

Chuck turned his face up from the tablet. "Metatron." Chucks's eyes were wide, like he couldn't believe what he had just said. "My name was Metatron. I was the Scribe of Heaven."

"_Scribe of Heaven?"_ Kevin's voice hadn't lowered in it'd decibel levels. He stared at the tablet in Chuck's hands. "You _wrote_ that thing You can read it-_all of it?_" Kevin looked at the runes on the tablet at the place he had last translated; and at the part that had broken. The one he wasn't able to read at all.

"I can't remember-" Chuck said this like he was trying to recall a one night stand after a bender. He grabbed at his eyes."After the Apocalypse, after I wrote the last pages, I got called back, to a white room, there was this _woman_ there, she did things – she asked me about the Tablets-I told her I didn't know; she got angry and wiped my memory-"

"Never mind about all that crap!" Kevin shouted. He resisted the urge to punch Chuck in the face for rambling. "Can you read that or not?"

Chuck shook himself like he was in a dream. He looked at the Tablet. A rush of noise hit his ears, like a million voices trying to talk to him all at once. He grabbed his ear with his free hand and cried out. But eventually the noise stopped; became like one drone of a machine. Chuck released his ears and looked at the writing like he was able to see it clearly for the first time.

Kevin watched Chuck."What's it say? How does this end?"

Chuck looked up from the Tablet. He didn't say anything.

**xxxxxXxxxxx**

The baying of the Hellhounds came in waves. Louder until they reached a junction; then dying off. It could have been that the dogs were tired, thrown off the scent for whatever reason. Or it could have been simply that they were playing games. But they didn't stop to ask.

Sam's weight on Dean was heavy, and lumbering. He tried to push himself off of his brother. But Dean felt it and jerked him harder with a _'come on!'_ refusing to let go.

Moving at this frantic pace, even the halls of Hell became a blur. Red lights, the screaming of the damned.

Time was absent in Hell; they were only able to measure how long they had ran in exhaustion, and the refusal to give into it. Finally they reached a spot where the light angled higher, signaling a larger area.

They were the base of a large archway almost cathedral like, domed in skeletal white with 4 matching colored columns. At the end of the columns was another archway that ended in solid black obsidian rock all the way up its length.

A stain of black goo was in a puddle on the ground by the outermost left column.

"This is it," Sam stared at the blood, where Dean's knife had found and killed the Hellhound. He fumbled into his pocket and out the gold skeleton key. "Go-"

Dean pulled Sam towards one of the white columns. He removed Sam's arm off of him and wrapped it around stone.

Sam's feet almost gave way, but he pulled himself up at the last minute.

Dean watched him. The baying of hellhounds grew louder again. He turned back down hallway and then back to his brother- "Sammy-"

"_Go!"_ Sam shouted with as much strength as he was able to. "I'm right behind you!"

Dean stared at his brother clinging to the stone. He forced his hands down; forced his gaze away and turned, walking quickly through the last set of columns. He walked right at the black wall of stone and vanished through it.

He was back standing in the copse of cypress trees. It was still night, but the blackness began to have some gray around the edges, revealing more of the landscape of fallen trees. Somewhere far off insects started to click.

Dean was only briefly aware of noise. He stood in between the group of trees with the carving on them. It was then he realized that he had _nothing_, no spell or witch or _anything _to tell him what to do. He had never bothered to ask Don on the specifics, it had all happened so fast. Now he was outside the Gates of Hell, and Sam was trapped inside.

Dean half gave into an angry frantic feeling; but then a burning pain hit his forearm, dropping him with a scream. The tree mark on his hand glowed red hot like the embers of a fire. _"Sammy"_ his brother's name was instantly on his lips.

Don said that they couldn't feel each other's pain, that the Life Link didn't work that way. But as instantly as Dean called out Sam's name when he felt the burning; he knew that this had nothing to do with the Life Link.

A string of words suddenly entered into his brain; recited in Sam's voice, frantic sounding.

Dean moved to stand in the exact center of the trees. He placed both hands in the air, palms out. At first the air remained fluid, invisible. But then something pressed against his palms like stone. "_Come on little brother."_

Dean pushed back, hard, grunting. _"Khit śhal kalpa idam Deva Loka a di jīva!"_ The space around Dean's hands began to glow bright red.

A wind harsh, and blowing like the outer fringes of a hurricane blew and shook the leaves behind him.

Dean's hands were stuck in their position like they had been glued, the wind picked up louder. A tree branch broke off and landed hard at his feet. "_Come on Sammy-"_ Dean couldn't have moved if he wanted too. But if he could; he wouldn't have. "_Come on!"_

The orange glow spread beyond his hands; it traveled outward like rapidly released water until the entire area between the trees glowed like it was on fire.

Dean's hands began to burn like they were caught in actual fire. He felt the skin searing on his palms. He bit his tongue on a scream; not knowing how long he would have to stand there. But he knew he wasn't going to leave until-

A shadow broke through the orange; it rolled hard until it landed in a slam against the ground.

The orange light swirled in on itself like a vortex, when it reached the center it went out with a thundering rattle that shook the ground and trees like an earthquake.

"Sam!" Dean was finally able to release his hands from the air. They came away with a _rip_ like the a layer of skin had been torn from his palms. But Dean didn't pay attention to it. He dropped beside his brother.

Sam was lying on the ground on his back, his hands grasped hard at his thigh where a gaping wound leaked blood and a sliver of bone gleamed through the skin.

"Sam- hey!" Dean grabbed his brother's shoulder. He looked down Sam's leg, undeniably broken. Sam jerked at the contact. "Easy-I got you-"

"_Famous last words."_

Dean turned around. In the sliver of moonlight that rose in the absence of the orange light Baal stood there. Her face gashed into a scowl. She raised a long red bladed knife, and slashed it down towards Dean.

The hit was so fast that Dean didn't have time to duck completely. The blade sliced through the skin of his ear.

Baal screamed a noise that rattled the entire forest and brought the knife down again.

**xxxxxXxxxx**

Kevin stared at Chuck; Metatron- _whatever, _in complete, utter, unimaginative disbelief. "That's crazy, _you're crazy-"  
_

"Kevin-" Chuck didn't have kids, he most certainly didn't have _Prophet_ kids so he was going solely on a shit load of chances trying to talk Kevin down.

"You're _Metatron!"_ Kevin screamed. "Just right something else!"

"I'm not Metatron anymore-" Chuck stopped trying to talk Kevin down; stopped because he wasn't exactly calm anymore. "I can't -" Chuck watched Kevin grab at his hair, in anger. "I don't know how to-"

Kevin released his head and swept a hand over all the stuff he stole. The coffee pot, the hot plate, the lantern, all slammed into each other with a deafening crash.

"_People are sleeping Kev,"_

Crowley stood in the middle of the restroom. "I suggest you tone it down."

Kevin jumped to his feet like he had been burned. He backed against the wall like a cornered animal.

Crowley looked over at Chuck, like he was just seeing him for the first time, his head cocked. "Metatron is it?" The King of Hell watched Chuck's eyes go wide. "I don't think we've had the pleasure. Used to hear stories about you when I was a wee demon-"

Kevin held out his knife. "How'd you get in here-!"

"I love a good intrigue" Crowley said calmly. "Cliff's notes version; went on a short unneaded vacay. Hitched a ride back Stateside with one of my lads because the little witch bitch at the travel agency short circuited me for a bit-"

"You're powerless?" Kevin wasn't making a statement. The knife in his hand shook.

"Don't be so relieved mate," Crowley returned. He glanced at his watch. "It only holds for 3,2,1-" Crowley snapped his fingers and the mirrors and walls exploded inward. The tiles on the wall were blasted off from the cement foundation behind it, breaking apart the sigil symbols.

Chuck and Kevin dropped to the ground, covering their faces as glass and ceramic flew at them from all sides; the noise nearly deafened them.

Crowley looked up from his watch"-Gone."

**xxxxxXxxxxx**

"You're little witch slut Maggie," Baal circled Dean like a predator; a smirk splitting her face like a gash.

Dean circled her as well, his back towards where Sam had fallen.

"I took care of her-now it's your turn!" She brought the knife down again, a direct hit towards Dean's chest.

Baal screamed; she pulled back in a rage. The knife had missed its mark. She looked down at the black blade sticking out of her leather boot.

Sam was on his chest, sprawled out on the ground, panting. His hand released the knife hilt.

The demon grabbed his wrist before he could pull it away and hauled him up. "If you wanted to go first Sammy," she squeezed his wrist backwards, smiling as she heard him cry out. "All you had to do was ask." She pulled her knife back again.

Dean dropped to the ground, he grabbed the knife hilt still sticking out of her shoe and twisted. The sound of flesh and breaking tendons came with an audible snap.

Baal screamed again, louder. Her hold on Sam loosed.

Dean grabbed his brother and jerked him backwards. "Come on!" he pulled Sam away from the tree line as fast as he could.

Sam's broken leg dragged behind him, but he limped on his good one, following Dean's frantic steps.

**xxxxxXxxxx**

Dust from the tiles and broken glass billowed up like smoke. Kevin raised his hands from his head.

"Chuck!" Kevin spotted the older man lying on his back, trapped under a piece of the ceiling that had caved in. He wasn't moving, and blood ran crimson from a gash on his forehead.

"You'll never learn will you?" Crowley stepped over Chuck buried under the pile of rubble like he was a dry patch of grass. He was holding the tablet under his arm. He grabbed Kevin by the shirt collar and slammed him against the broken wall.

Pieces of sharp tile rained down on Kevin's hair, already dusted with white. "Your lot will always be _pathetic_ Kev." Crowley got right up in Kevin's face."You're nothing but little cockroaches running around on this planet waiting to be squashed! I rule this planet!"

Crowley's eyes suddenly went wide in shock He looked down at the tip of a knife blade sticking out of his chest. He turned slowly behind him seeing Chuck standing there, breathing hard.

Crowley growled, but it was a sound of annoyance, not impending death. "You've been out of Heaven for a _long_ time Metatron if you're playing the Hail Mary card of human desperation. Too bad you don't have your position anymore," he squeezed Kevin's neck, hearing him gasp." I'd love a blow by blow about how I ended you, both of you."

Crowley's grip on Kevin's neck twisted like a spasm. His body jerked forward like it had been struck.

"I may not be Metatron anymore, but I still remember his dictations," Chuck's voice was heavy, angry. "Especially the part in there where it talks about making homemade a weapon to kill something like you-"

The knife was still embedded in his chest, but Crowley hadn't removed it, because it posed no credible threat. But when he looked down at the knife tip, he saw the thin line of a carved Enochian symbol that continued into the part of the knife that was still inside him.

Chuck stared down the demon"-You'd be surprised how the ingredients for such a powerful weapon can be found at your local retail bedroom and bath supply store-"

Kevin suddenly sprang from the wall and twisted the handle of the butcher knife.

Crowley gave a cry, a horrendous wail of a sound. His body began to flicker like a lantern, then exploded into a bright orange light, then turned to a charred black, falling into ashen chunks to the floor.

**xxxxxXxxxx**

Sam tried to gain his own ground, trying to take the weight off of his brother, but even his undamaged leg would not hold under his body. He crashed to the ground several times. Dean hauled him up each time and they continued to move at a pace that would have dropped them both had they not had a flood of adrenaline coursing through their bodies.

They broke through the tree branches, into a grassy hill. Sam fell again, hard on his face.

The bramble on the ground cut into his hands as Sam tried to haul himself up.

"Let's go, c'mon!" Dean grabbed his brother under the arms, starting to pull him up. He was thrown into the air a moment later, the momentum carried him down the grassy embankment where he rolled end over end.

He came to a stop in a sea of grass, the moon high in the sky. He didn't see Sam.

"_SAM!"_ Dean scrambled to his feet, screaming for his brother. His eyes darted into the tree line.

Sam burst from the darkness a moment later.

But so did Baal.

She pinned them, taunted them. Ripped the bone from Sam's leg.

Dean found that bone against his throat, he stared hard at the black emptiness that was Baal's face. "You would think that after all this you bitches would stop underestimating my brother."

Baal let go of Dean's body, propelling it forward into the path of Sam's arch with the blade.

Sam didn't have time to redirect the shot; the blade sunk into Dean's side and he screamed.

"_No!" _ Sam screamed too, both noises torn into the night.

"Who's underestimating _whom?"_ Baal's voice was low, warped, mocking. "Tell me, boys, what kind of dirges do you like?"

"_Sammy," _ Dean's voice was choked; then became a harsh grunted scream as he pulled the blade from his gut, the imprints of fingerprints staining the blood.

Sam grabbed the blade from Dean's bloody hands. "_Dean-"_

Dean fell back on his knees onto the ground.

The blood on the blade handle was slick, but Sam found purchase on it. He lunged at the demon.

She dodged the attack, kicking him in the skull.

Sam felt his entire brain rattle; stars blinded him. But a feral rage over took him; he arched his swing.

This time it connected.

The black eyes erupted into a mass of hot flames shooting from their sockets. Baal screamed louder than she ever had before. Her body exploded into a burst of molten red and orange light.

The force threw Sam backwards, end over end on the grass until he landed against the base of the Cypress tree where Dean had fallen.


	14. Dawn Again

**xxxxxXxxxxx**

**Chapter 13-** **"Dawn"**

"_Excuse me forgetting, these things that I do._

_See I've forgotten if they're green or they're blue._

_Anyway the thing is, what I really mean._

_Yours are the sweetest eyes I've ever seen."_

~Elton John "_Your Song"_

**xxxxXxxx**

_The noise was loud, people passing by walking into the diner. Each time the door opened, the greasy delicious smell of burgers and fries blew out. juxtaposed at the entrance of the diner there was also a covered drive in station for cars._

"_Here you go," the car hop in her pink cardigan sweater and tight black cropped pants lowered her tray. She picked up the orange baskets of food, and handed them over to the two kids sitting on the roof of their black car. "One cheeseburger, extra onions." She handed that basket to the younger of the two. A cute looking kid, with a long mop of dark hair. "And one triple bypass with extra bacon and curly fries." _ _This one went to the teen, a lanky looking kid in a brown leather jacket. _

_A wicked smile too old for him played on the teen's lips as he accepted the burger basket from her. "Thanks sweetheart."_

_She took his money with a bit of an awkward smile and left._

"_Dean, that was lame." Sam settled his burger plate into._

"_You're just a kid Sammy," Dean argued, picking up his burger half wrapped in paper. "What do you know?"_

"_I know enough to know that she's not gonna fall for something like that." Sam picked at his burger, pulling apart the lettuce from in between the meat and the bun. _

"_You gonna eat that or dissect it?" Dean eyed his kid brother who was doing everything but actually eating the burger. _

_Sam gave him a bitchfaced look; but it dissolved a moment later when he picked up the burger and took a bite. The taste that exploded on his tongue- it wasn't like an burger from McDonalds. It was –_

"_Amazing huh?" Dean said around a mouthful of masticated burger in his mouth._

_Sam's mouth was too full to answer without spraying food, but he nodded in the affirmative._

"_I knew this place would be good when I smelled it." Dean said it like he had single handedly built the restaurant. He took another bite of his burger, talking, again, with a full mouth. "So how'd you like the movie?"_

"_It wasn't that scary-" this time Sam's mouth was full too. A piece of lettuce plopped on the paper cradled in the orange basket. "Ghosts don't act like that."_

"_It's just a movie," Dean surmised. Huge pieces of onions and lettuce fell into his basket, and he picked these up with mayonnaise stained fingers and dropped them in his mouth. "But it was kind of _lame," _He watched Sam's give a look of silent 12-year-old affirmation as he chewed another bite of his own burger. "Carol Ann's done this for _three _movies already. She should've run faster than some dumb ass ghost car-"_

_Sam gave a grunted laugh this time, which turned into a half choke._

_Dean whacked him once on the back. "Chew your food."_

"_Shut up," Sam said clearing his throat. _

"_Here," Dean lifted up his paper soda cup and handed it to Sam. "Wash it down."_

_Sam took the cup and took a pull from the straw. _

"_You good?" Dean eyed him with a concerned look._

"_Yeah," Sam looked up from his hacking. His eyes were slightly watery, but the look was still happy. "_Real _good Dean." Sam didn't want to go back to their crappy motel-of-the-week with the fuzzy cable and the lumpy beds. "This is great Dean, thanks for taking me-" Sam's voice dropped away, but a genuine smile took its place._

_Dean shrugged half a smile, pretending for a moment to be annoyed at Sam for being such a little girl. But the smell of the onions, the warmth of the metal of the Impala under him, Sam's denim clad legs beside him on the hood – it made all that dissolve. "No problem Sammy."_

**xxxxxXxxxxx**

Dean's side felt aerated; and it burned like it was lit on fire. Leaves from the ground were jammed into it which made the wound scream in agony.

"Sam?-"

Fallen Cypress branches were scattered everywhere, some of them massive, almost the size of the trees themselves.

"Sammy?" Dean crawled to the still shape sprawled against the base of the tree.

Sam was covered in blood, his face white even in the darkness.

"Hey!" Dean grabbed Sam's shoulder's and Sam jerked.

"Easy," Dean said pulled one hand back, a gesture of surrender to show Sam that there wasn't a threat. "Take it easy-"

"Dean?-" Sam coughed, hard, a fist size amount of blood dripped out of his mouth and made him pant for breath. His eyes dropped to Dean's side where the blood was stained against his side. "You-" His eyes flew to his brother's face, and his hand reached out to examine the wound.

"It's nothing," Dean pushed Sam's hand away.

Sam's eyes were defiant "That's not nothing-" he reached his hand out again, but Dean slapped it back.

"Told you I'm fine," Dean's voice was growl, one that he tried to keep the grimace out of. "We got her, Sam. We did it. That's all that counts." Dean looked over Sam. He was bathed in blood, but the only visible wound was the one on his leg; a half shredded crater torn at the base of his knee.

Dean didn't even know where to begin to put his hands. "We gotta get you out of here."

Sam panted watching his brother. "Dean I can't walk-"

"It's okay," Dean argued. "I'll carry you out of here-"

"_Dean-" _

The voice wasn't Sam's.

Dean glanced up and behind him to the figure in the wrinkled suit and tan trench coat.

"Cas?" His voice was half disbelief, half relief. The angel was standing right over them, watching them.

Cas looked over them both like a medic who was assessing the awful carnage of war. He reached out his hand to touch Dean's forehead.

"_No-"_ Dean's voice was insistent. "Do Sam first!"

Cas glanced over at the younger man. His breathing was heavy and hard and blood was coating his lower leg.

A look settled over Castiel's face. Not one particular to angels; but particular to Cas. "Dean-"

"I know you can't heal the Trial's crap," Dean said this with a harsh grind in his voice. He glanced a long glance at his brother. "Just fix him as best you can. I can take care of the rest-"

"I can't," the angel watched Dean's face turn. Even with a bleeding gut, the anger on it could not be dimmed.

"_Fix him!"_ Dean's cry was as raw as exposed steel girders scraping against each other.

"The Final Trial; no matter the injuries it puts Sam beyond the reach of any angel-" Castiel's eyes became ancient, sad. "I'm sorry-"

Dean stared at him. There was a disbelief in his face, heavy like a stone being held up by one hand. "Where?-"

Castiel's expression cut off Dean's words; the unspoken passed between the angel and his friend.

The disbelief melted off Dean's face and became something else. A resolve forged out of 34 years. "Go," he told the angel.

"Dean," Sam's voice reached him. "_No,_ shut up!" The last words were a plea, not anger.

"Dean," Cas's mouth opened and closed like a landed fish.

"Keep us together," Dean's voice was a wet sound, but it still carried. "You understand?"

Cas's mouth opened again, a thousand utterance fighting to come out. But they all lost out over the silence that closed his mouth.

The flap of wings became like a breeze as he vanished.

Dean turned towards Sam. There was such a look on Sam's face that it cut through the darkness like its own light.

Dean pushed himself closer, a hand braced to his gut. He could feel a sticky mass of internal organ against his palm. "Sam," Dean pulled himself up so that he was leaning against the tree, facing him. His expression was sorrowful. "Don't you get mad at me."

Sam turned up his eyes. "_Why?"_

"Because you're my brother."

Dean watched Sam's eyes close with a long heavy breath and when he opened them again the look was piercing.

"I can't stay here without you anymore," Dean's voice was thick from the pain in his side, and from someplace much deeper. "I can't," his voice broke, just for a moment. "I'm sorry – I'm sorry I dragged you into this entire thing."

"You didn't," Sam's voice was failing at the same rate as Dean's. It waved in and out like a breeze. "I wanted to come," The hazel in his eyes shifted to a blue/green; cloudy, but still colorful. He felt a pressure on his wrist; and looked down from his haze of pain and saw Dean grasping his wrist.

"You did real good Sammy." Dean's traced Sam's wrist with a calloused thumb. "You know what really sucks?" Sam gave him half a look, but he didn't wait for him to answer. "I'm really gonna miss my room."

A dried sounding laugher erupted from Sam. In the middle of it Dean joined in, both noises echoed into the night.

The laughter ended when Dean stared, long and hard at his brother. He scooted the remaining distance until he was right up next to Sam and pressed a kiss in between his eyes; a few tear drops hitting Sam's skin. He drew Sam to him; smelling the blood and the forest rot on him; his body warm.

Sam couldn't move his lower body anymore; couldn't feel his legs. But he managed to sneak an arm out and pat Dean on the chest; and he left his hand there, and felt the beating of his heart.

A breeze had begun to pick up, warm with the hint of summer in its movement. For the first time since they had come into the wood, a trill of birds began to whisper a low cadence of songs.

"Wanna watch the stars?" Sam asked like it was a random night from days past, when they were allowed a few moments of freedom.

Dean didn't answer with words; he gazed again at Sam. He tightened his grip on his brother and turned his eyes upward to the night that had become dazzling in their absence from it; a myriad of stars painted the sky like diamonds.

Sam followed Dean's gaze upwards to those same stars.

And they watched them until they watched nothing at all.


	15. Morning Again

**xxxxxXxxxx**

**Chapter 14- "Morning."**

"_What is love? It is the Morning and the Evening Star."_

~Sinclair Lewis

**xxxxxXxxxx**

The embankment was covered in grass, some of it dried, some of it still green. All of it surrounded by the cicadas that came out of the recesses of the land to echo their noises of clicks into the open air.

There was two Cypress trees, taller, older than all the others that surrounded it, their roots branching out like umbrellas turned on their end.

Next to these trees was a smaller one, at smaller least compared to them, an Oak. The grass underneath it was green, but bent, split in places, and the oak itself had part of its bark stripped from the face of its trunk.

A figure approached it, a man, dirty, blood leaking from the hairline by a thick mass of dark hair, clothes looking like they had been through a carnage and forced through a ringer of mud. The man himself walked like he had been forced through that same ringer. There was no automobile behind him, and he did not remember having walked there; because he had last been hundreds of miles from this place, even if he wasn't certain as to exactly where he was.

But, as he approached the smaller oak tree amidst the bigger trees he saw another there, all those questions that darted around him like buzzing flies vanished.

The figure was a man in a trench coat, crouched at the base of the oak tree he spotted.

"Castiel," Chuck came on the right side of the angel. Now that he was close enough, he could see that the grass had been uprooted in vast amounts in places, like it had been attacked by a weed whacker. The split bark of the oak stood out stark, like something had clawed at it. Fallen branches were scattered all around this tree. But there was no evidence as to what had made these marks, there were just them.

"It is good to see you Metatron."Castiel did not raise his head from where he crouched.

Chuck's eyes widened briefly, in shock as to how this fact was known, but it vanished just as quickly when he remembered who he was talking too. He glanced down at the base of the tree where the damage to the grass was the worst. "What is this place?"

"They were the bravest friends I knew," Castiel reached out to a blade of grass that was torn half from its root, hanging at angle. He broke it off in his fingers and twirled it like a pinwheel. "Crowley?"

"Dead."Chuck answered. He absorbed this information; felt it fall on him like pelts of pebbles sifted onto him from a child's fingers. "Where are Sam and Dean?"

Cas stared out ahead of him at the air in-between the two cypress trees."The Gates of Hell have been shut."

Cas stood up, his hand still held the blade of grass. The night had begun to turn gray, peakings of a orange and pink outlining the border of the landscape. But in the center, the sky was still an dark inky blue, a grouping of stars clustered into this, shining.

Cas turned his eyes up to this, an almost whisper of a smile crossed his face. "Stars are more than just balls of light. You have been out of your Grace a long time Metatron, I don't know if you remembered that-our Father sanctioned them as an island for souls, a place out of reach of demon or angel."

Castiel finally turned away from the stars and stared at the face with the curly brown hair and the beard.

"Sam's soul has been marked by the trials to remain earthbound," Castiel finished, the ancient look in his eyes shifted to a quiet sadness, like he had failed.

"I know the Tablet Castiel," Chuck said this almost like it was an accusation against himself, like something he had written while drugged. "I don't remember writing them, but I can still read them."

A breeze, a warm one blew the blade of grass from Cas's hand, He followed its path as it wafted it upwards and out of sight.

"Once the final Trial was complete it removed all protection the Winchesters had acquired from the Witch. I didn't tell this to Dean – but he knew," Cas turned back to Chuck. "He did not want to be without his brother."

Chuck watched as Cas's eyes traveled back up in to the air, this time, not to follow the blade of grass, but to look back up at the stars which hung above them.

"Stars are more of earth then of heaven Brother," Cas said, eyes fixed to the tiny lights. "Sam and Dean are together."

The angel turned one last time to look at Chuck, who's head came down from his gaze on the sky like he could sense it from where his Grace used to remain: "But there is one thing left that I ask of you."

**xxxxxXxxxx**

"What the hell are you saying?!" Kevin stared at Chuck, his anger lit over his face like too bright light bulbs. "_No, _I can't!"

Chuck watched the teen throw a legal pad full of scribbles across the table. It hit the metal wall of the boat with a bang and fluttered to the floor.

"You're a Prophet," Chuck watched Kevin pick up a coffee pot and throw it. revberated. "It's your job-"

Kevin threw the pot against the wall where the legal pad had it. The glass shattered and the week old coffee inside broke out with a stain against the metal. "I don't care about my _JOB!"_ He turned his rage towards Chuck, his breath hard, in pants. "Metatron, _Chuck_ whatever the hell you are – you are just like the rest of them! You command us to do things, you order us around! you take and _take_ until- Sam and Dean are _DEAD_!" Kevin's voice grew louder. "There's _nothing_-!"

"They're stories," Chuck cut in. Kevin's expression didn't back down from anger, but it twisted it into a kind of confusion. "That's not nothing."

Kevin mouthed the words like they were pieces of crap stuck between his teeth. "If it's not nothing, then _you _ write it! You're the Scribe of Heaven!" His words were accusatory, his face grown over with stubble, his eyes far too old for his age.

Chuck's feet crunched over the shattered pieces of the coffee pot that were under his shoes as he bent down and retrieved the legal pad. from where it sat among the glass shards. He braved the risk, and sat down on the edge o the wooden table next to where Kevin was standing.

"I'm not a good writer Kevin-I just take dictation. But, you're different, different then all of us I think," a peeking of Metatron came out in Chuck's laugh, a quiet sound of something ancient. "Sam and Dean started this, they gave their entire lives over to something they never asked for or wanted." He set the legal pad down in front of Kevin. "They deserve a real ending."

Kevin's stepped over to the desk. His hand ghosted over the legal pad. He picked it up, then dropped it into the waist basket.

Chuck started at the action. "Kevin-"

""I'm not a good writer Chuck," Kevin stared back at the Prophet/Scribe of Heaven with the same intensity as had been given to him. He flipped open his laptop and typed a few commands. The document that had been on the screen vanished as the webcam came on and broadcast the Kevin's face leaning over the lens. "I'm not a writer at all."

Kevin turned his eyes back up to Chuck, and a look of silent understanding passed between them.

Kevin sat down at the rickety chair by the desk as Chuck leant up off the table and turned towards the door and left.


	16. Epilogue

**xxxxXxxx**

**Epilogue**

"_Tell them stories."_

~Phillip Pullman; The Amber Spyglass

**xxxxxXxxxxx**

"_There are stories about the Winchesters, dozens of them; most of them larger than life things written and posted all over the internet. But if you're watching this; this isn't one of them. _

_Sam and Dean grew up on a small section of Kansas. Their parents weren't ordinary, and their childhood wasn't exactly ordinary either. They've seen things, killed things, and done things that would probably make most of us shit ourselves at just the ideas._

_But the thing was, they weren't supermen, or X men, or whatever kind of comic strip you're into. They just knew too much. They didn't have luck, not _good _luck anyway, or any superpowers. They just kept jumping back up after every hit. Every blow the angels and the demons decided to throw at them for kicks._

_And yeah, they did phenomenal things because they refused to go down, You'd probably call it heroic, and it probably was. The lives they saved, the things they hunted down kept all of us safe when we didn't even know it._

_But they never wanted to be heroes. I didn't know them that long; but the thing is I don't think you had to understand what kept them fighting this entire time; kept them going. _

_I can't speak for them, but if you remember the Winchesters for anything; don't cop out on the glitzy blockbuster movie stuff – I know they wouldn't want that. Just remember Sam and Dean were always brothers first. Everything that they did from the very start to the very end was because of that."_

Kevin stared at the blinking light on his camera lens, watching it flicker like a red star for a moment.

"_You both kicked ass. And Dean; we found your car in New Orleans, don't worry she's being taken care of."_

His eyes closed for a moment blacking it out. He opened them again when he heard a pounding on the ship's door and Garth's inquiring voice a moment later.

"_We got it from here guys – Godspeed alright?" _

Kevin reached over and clicked off the monitor, returning it to black. He stood up from the chair and went to go answer the door.

**xxxxxXxxxx**

**The End.**

If you have made it to here, I thank you. I know it's a painful thing to read, _believe_ me I know. I had the hardest time writing it. But I had this scene, of the boys together at the very end, by the tree, together. And if I deviated from that scene, I would not have a story, everything led up to that moment, when they made it together to the end.

I know it is not the ideal life of Sam and Dean, I wrestled with ignoring my above formula, but I had to write the story the way I saw it, it is not ideal or perfect, but it is about love.

This is my first and last death fic with these guys, it's just too painful. But I had to flex my writing muscles to do something that I felt I needed to write, even if it made me cry like a little girl while writing the end.

Thank you very much.

And trust me, this isn't the end of my writing…I'm thinking, something humerous and shmoopy next…VERY HUMEROUS….

~Peace

Mystic


End file.
